The Little Angel
by Da Games Elite
Summary: After the birth of Toji and Hikari's baby, Asuka finds herself pregnant. Memories of the past inhibit Shinji and Asuka from enjoying what should be the greatest memory of their lives, but is their fear for naught, or are their concerns valid fears? AxS
1. Chapter 1

What you are about to read is in no way connected to my previous Fan-Fiction, "In the Case of Asuka Langley Sohryu," which I still recommend you read because, in my opinion, I think it touches upon a certain aspect of the series that people usually don't touch upon: why don't these damn kids just get psychologists to help them with their problems? Well, that not withstanding, I've wanted to find fan-fics where Asuka and Shinji finally confront the horrors of parenthood, and considering just what their parents were like, one having a rather cold and distant father and the other's mother committing suicide in front of her eyes, it left much potential not only to do a great Asuka fan-fic, but also a great Shinji fan-fic as well. Naturally, considering the subject matter, there will be several OCs, but they'll mostly be children.

WARNING: Despite being rated T, there is a very mild, PG-13 level sex scene in the next chapter. This is not a lemon, not a hentai, and the sex will barely count as ecchi. It's more essentially to show the beauty of the human body, and just how two certain characters get into this situation in the first place. If you feel uncomfortable about it, gloss over it. If you're into that sort of stuff, like lemons, I'm sorry, but I want this to reach the general audience.

So, without further adieu…

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**THE LITTLE ANGEL**

**BY DA GAMES ELITE**

**Part 1**

"I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away, I mustn't—"

"Shut up, please."

"Sorry."

Usually those were lines spoken by her, telling him to shut up, that he was being annoying, that this stupid habit of his, that fallback on muttering that same mantra to calm his nerves was just immature, irritating, and, once again, stupid. However, for better or worse, the adult known as Shinji Ikari glanced over at the tense individual sitting next to him, a man he had known for over ten years, through the tough times and the bad, a man who was now in both an enviable situation and a pitiful one: Toji Suzuhara.

Years ago, Shinji had watched Toji being ripped apart before his eyes. Well, his Eva being ripped apart, anyway, by Shinji's own Unit-01. That had been almost another life time ago. If you saw Toji know, while you wouldn't think he was in the best of health considering the circumstances, he certainly didn't look like a dismembered devastated wreck. His arms had been replaced with metallic, robotic ones. In the early years following Third Impact, they had looked cartoonish, like something out of a sci-fi film. Just plain metal, unhidden, with long wires and bolts clear to the naked eye. Now, however, thanks to the leaps and bounds of technology, and just the leaps and bounds the world had gone through since Third Impact overall, Toji's mechanical arms, while they occasionally made a buzzing sound every so often due to maybe a loose bolt or a tangled up wire, looked like ordinary appendages, skin, muscle fiber, everything.

However, like Shinji said, none of this kept Toji from looking like a broken down wreck right now. Sweat was billowing down his forehead; his hair was in the air because of him ruffling it, tugging at it, anxiously twisting in spite of himself. His eyes were bloodshot, probably because he hadn't had a good night's sleep in the last few days, once again due to circumstance. This lack of sleep also contributed to the black bags he wore under his eyes, the bags that sacked down, and made him look as though he were twenty years older than what he really was: a man at the age of 26.

He looked, for all intents and purposes, like a damn zombie!

And Shinji could do nothing about it.

"Hey," Shinji mumbled, anxiously wriggling his fingers as he glanced over at Toji, "Do you want me to get you a drink or something? You look like you could use—"

"I'm fine, thanks," Toji replied, staring up at the door he had been staring at, waiting in front of, for the last several hours.

"Are you sure? Listen, she'll be fine, just—"

"Get yourself a drink. You could use it," Toji replied, glancing over at his friend for a moment.

This was true. In spite of himself, Shinji too looked exhausted. Extremely so.

Shinji walked down the hospital ward, away from the bench where Toji and their other long time friend Kensuke sat. As he rose, Shinji noticed that Kensuke was actually sound asleep, leaning against the white, cold wall of the hospital hallway. No doubt his job as a military tactician had long hours and lots of stress, so Shinji thought, out of the three of them, HE'D be the one awake, the most calm. But no, he was currently comatose, asleep against the wall, drooling a little bit. His thick brown hair was pressed between his skull and the wall, his usually pasty skin wasn't any more or less pasty than it usually was, his small, slim frame didn't look nearly as exhausted as Toji's large, muscular frame did.

"I'll be right back. I just need to use the bathroom a little bit," Shinji replied.

"Take your time. I'm sure nothing will happen for at least another half-hour," Toji replied, in that tense, strained voice of his.

It bothered Shinji just to see his friend this upset. He'd known him for years, he reflected as he walked down the hallway to whatever destination he intended at arriving at. He'd known him before and after the nightmare known as Third Impact, just like he'd known Kensuke, Hikari, and—

Where was she, anyway? Where was that German girl? Didn't she realize what her friend was going through right now? What was Shinji saying? Of course she did. She had been the one who had called him last night to tell him to move his ass and arrive at the hospital ASAP. Of course, she had been far harsher with that spitfire tongue of hers, but, in all honesty, Shinji could tell she was worried, concerned, maybe even a little afraid for her friend. This was supposed to be one of the best moments of Toji's life, of Hikari's life, and yet it was proving to be one of the longest, most drawn out periods of stress Shinji had experienced in the last five or six years.

Nothing next to the pain he felt during that nightmarish day, though.

Nothing like the Hell that was Third Impact.

He had to stop reflecting on that day! Third Impact had occurred over a decade ago! It was over, finished! It was a nightmare he was never going to need to relive again, those first three years of utter chaos, the first seven months where he and Asuka remained alone, struggling to survive, wondering if anyone would ever return, the next year seeing civilization struggle to return to normalcy, and, for the rest of the immediate aftermath of Third Impact, watch the nation crumble apart before the remnants of NERV decided to put things in order. The horrors of finding people's starving bodies on the ground in heaps, of seeing people slaughtered in genocide, of being held a prisoner in questioning booths and concentration camps, it was all in the past! All in the damn past!

Finding himself in front of a sink in the blue-tiled bathroom of this hospital, Shinji threw water against his face, rubbing it clean as he realized the absurdity of what he was saying. All in the past? That was just stupid, as Asuka would always say! He knew that those events had affected him on a deeper level, yes, and that he could never change them. The world he lived in now was drastically affected by those days. All he could do now was hope for a better tomorrow, and, with all that had been going on in the last few years, things had been better.

As Shinji left the bathroom, he heard a voice crack as it shouted his name. He glanced over his shoulder, only to see a pair of arms wrap themselves around his face, smothering him in a pair of thick breasts, strangling him, choking the life out of him. He turned blue in a matter of moments, barely able to pull away from that restrictive bear hug only to find, to his utter astonishment, fused of course with utter delight, Misato Katsuragi—er—Misato Hyuga, a woman who had been more a mother to him than even the woman named Yui Ikari, who now was somewhere in the depths of space, perhaps gone forever from Shinji's life.

Shinji didn't like thinking about that. After all, here was Misato! Don't think about the past, the present! Here! Now! Misato!

Somehow, this didn't cheer him up much at all.

"Oh, Shinji! I've missed you so—hey, what's wrong?" Misato asked, finally drawing back from her heart-felt, and in Shinji's case boob felt, greeting, only to notice that the recipient of the hug, or perhaps victim would be the better term, wasn't nearly as happy as she was. "Are you stressed about Hikari? Don't be. She'll be fine. It'll all turn out for the best in the end, so don't worry about a thing."

Shinji, in his flashback, had almost forgotten about the reason he was in this damn, ice cold hospital in the first place. Shaking the cobwebs out of his head, he replied, in a strained voice, "Oh, I'm fine, don't worry."

Misato glanced at him critically, and, for the first time in awhile, Shinji had a good look at the woman who had helped raise him before and after—don't think of it, don't think of it, don't think of it!!! Well, avoiding that thing that would cause him to regress once again into a painful reflection, Misato had aged slightly. Her face had developed slight laugh lines in the ten years past—Damn it! Don't think that way!—that day. Her hair had even developed one or two gray hairs that she seemed to have forgotten, conveniently enough, to dye. Additionally, it looked like her drinking had caught up to her in some degree, as her body now looked slightly puffier than it had last, as though a thin deposit of fat had grown all over her body. Still, to the ordinary person who hadn't known Misato in her heyday, she was quite a knock-out, especially for an older woman.

Shinji never thought he'd call Misato an older woman, ever.

"You know, Shinji, when you say 'I'm fine' that just screams out how damn upset you really are, but I'll let that one slide," Misato replied, a small grin on her lips, "Look, I know how you must feel. I mean, Makoto went through the same thing with me when I had Yumi." Misato rested a hand absentmindedly on her torso, as though she could still feel the fetus kicking inside of her. "And he went through the same thing with Ryouji." She added, on a gentler note.

"Uh, where are your children, anyway? Are they with Makoto?"

"Yeah, I mean, he wanted to come, believe me, but someone needed to watch the kids, and he knew I would probably be better emotional support for you guys, so he sent me." Misato added a little laugh at the end, as though to assure Shinji she was fine and happy that she was arriving to this event alone, but Shinji knew differently.

Still, he didn't bring it up.

"So, uh, do you want to come back with us? We're just sitting there, waiting."

"Okay, that's fine," Misato replied, nodding as the two of them went off to the hospital ward where Toji and Kensuke were. As they walked together, Misato glanced around the hospital, in mild awe, as though the cold interior of this place were something out of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. After a few minutes of glancing around at the occasional hanging picture of a flower or of a random historical figure who had done something special in the field of medicine, she asked, "Is this the hospital that Maya's in charge of?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, she does."

"Oh, that's nice."

"Yeah, it is."

An awkward silence filled the time period following this statement. For a moment, the two individuals simply walked down the hallway, until Shinji asked, curiously, "Does Makoto have any news on whether—"

"We don't know where Ritsuko is yet," Misato replied, frowning slightly. She glanced over at her side, at the ground by her feet. "And we haven't found—haven't found—"

"Uh, Misato, we're here," Shinji said, gesturing toward Toji as he remained huddled on a bench, with Kensuke slowly rousing himself from slumber land. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Kensuke Aida glanced up, noticing Misato for the first time.

"Misato! Good morning!" Kensuke stammered, rising to his feet and bowing slightly.

"Kensuke, we're not working right now. You don't need to bow or salute every time I—"

"Just habit, sorry," Kensuke replied, sitting down next to Toji, who now glanced up at Misato, curiously.

"Oh, hey," he replied in an uncharacteristic tone of bland disinterest.

"Stressed out, huh?" Misato asked, curiously.

"Yeah, I guess you can say that," Toji replied, "Hey, Misato?"

"Yeah?"

"When it happens, you know, does it hurt?"

"Oh, uh, well, about that." Misato blushed deep red as she struggled, no doubt, for a delicate, perhaps productive way to tell Toji that the answer to his question was yes, it was excruciating, painful, unbearable, hurt so damn much she'd rather have a battle axe slammed through her torso. "Well, it's not TOO painful. I mean, they put you on medication and anti-pain pills and—"

The sound of agonized screams filled the air from behind the door.

Misato fell silent.

"Thanks for at least trying," Toji replied, glumly.

It was at that moment that a doctor departed through those doors, and Toji, the anxious man that he is, jumped up, a tense expression on his face, the expression on his face akin to a sinner seeing God, praying for merciful judgment upon him. He lumbered forward, anxiously, as he spoke, slowly, "Is she—is she—is she alright?"

The doctor, a pleasant looking man probably in his thirties, smiled, and nodded. "Your wife is in pristine condition. The delivery went off splendidly. It's a boy."

"A boy?" Toji began to giggle to himself, like a giddy school girl, a laugh that grew louder and louder until he fell to his knees, almost in tears as a broad smile spread across his face. Shinji didn't know what to do. He did the thing he supposed was proper for a moment like that: he approached his friend, and patted his back reassuringly. Toji glanced over his shoulder, a smile on his face. "A boy. Can you believe it? a boy."

"I know," Shinji replied, not sure what to say in a time like this. When it had been Makoto, this situation hadn't been nearly as difficult because he had composed himself pretty well, taking everything in stride.

"If you want to see your wife, we can let you in, but just be careful: she's exhausted. She's been in labor for quite some time. It's a good thing her friend was with us."

"Friend?" Shinji asked, a little confused.

A second individual existed the double doors to the ward. It was strange: Shinji had asked himself why Asuka was nowhere to be found, but not for a second did he realize, in the event of her friend going through one of the greatest and most painful events in her life, that she'd be in the ward with her friend, helping her own, encouraging her to push, to go on harder, to live. Her long scarlet hair ran down her back, if anything more beautiful than she had been when he first met her. Right now, however, she was just as sweaty as Shinji was, maybe even more so. Her yellow sundress was sticking to her skin, her long crimson hair sticking to her forehead, her baby-blue eyes filled with an exhausted joy, a muted euphoria, a weary happiness.

"Normally I'd be upset that the Devil was with my wife, but I'll make an exception for today," Toji replied, jumping up and, to Shinji's disbelief, hugging the girl. Shinji thought, at first, that Asuka might be so tired she wouldn't react with that ordinary spitfire tongue of hers, that energy, that bratty streak that hadn't died in the years since her adolescence.

She wasn't.

As Asuka shoved Toji to the floor, she snapped, in a high, strained voice, "Mein Gott! Idiot! Arschloch! Schwein! Ugh!"

"What the hell!?" Toji stammered, pushing himself to his feet, stunned, yet frustrated and furious.

"Don't hug me! Men are just so stupid!" snapped Asuka, "Hugging people who're just standing there. I did this for Hikari, not you."

"You just had to ruin a perfectly good moment," Toji stammered, frustrated.

"Oh, ruin a perfectly good moment? Yeah, right! You think you're stressed out? Imagine how I feel? I had to watch my friend in all that pain! Do you know how much it hurts to give birth? It sucks! You men have no right to just say that you suffered because you had to sit around waiting for us!"

Toji glanced out from the corner of his eyes at Misato, an irate expression on his face. "Nice pain-pills?"

"Well, they worked when I was—"

"Gott in Himmel," sighed Asuka, shaking her head, "If you want to hug someone, hug Hikari. She's in that room, and she sent me out to tell you she wants to see you." Toji glanced down at her, a surprised expression on his face. With a slim smile on her face, she added, "She loves you, you know. A lot. Congratulations." Toji stared at her, still surprised that a demon who had just shoved her to the ground could possibly compliment him immediately after insulting him. Still, the eagerness to see to her wife overrode her curiosity, and he darted past the doctor into the ward.

Asuka sighed, her strong aura of bitchiness deflating as she collapsed on the bench where Toji himself had been sitting. Shinji approached her, surprised to see that Asuka's chest, visible in the sweaty dress, was pulsating dangerously, her heart thumping so hard against her ribs it was visible from a distance. Shinji knew this stress wasn't from Toji hugging her.

"Uh, Asuka?" Shinji asked, still too nervous to actually take a seat next to her. What if she lashed out at him?

"Hey," Asuka replied, her tone wispy, exhausted, but a small smile spreading up her lips. And exhausted smile, "Sit down, please. You're making me tired just looking at you."

Feeling braver, he took a seat by the redhead. "How is she?"

"Hikari? She's fine. She's strong, you know? She'll make a great mother, I think. She was considering names for the boy. She thought maybe Shinji would be nice, after you."

"What? Really?"

"Yeah, either that or Kensuke. I told her she shouldn't give her child such a terrible name."

"Hey!" Kensuke stammered, only to realize whom he was speaking to, and recoiled, afraid to be beaten by the devil's tongue.

"Are you feeling okay, though?" Shinji asked, tentatively placing a hand on her shoulder, concerned for his safety by making physical contact with the German girl.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just tired," Asuka replied, "When we get home, I need to go straight to bed, you know?"

"Oh, okay," Shinji replied, frowning slightly.

Asuka scratched the skin behind her ear, brushing aside her hair from her eyes, and, finally, placed a hand on her chest.

The engagement ring around her finger was clear to see.

So was that ring's partner on Shinji's finger.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

Leaving the bathroom, the young adult known as Shinji Ikari glanced down at the bed partially illuminated by the light filtering behind him. He watched the lovely German in his bed turn over, her scarlet hair twisting underneath her light weight, her flexed fingers pressed against her lips in her slumber, as though she were trying to pull herself into a loose fetal position. She moaned softly in the back of her throat as Shinji approached, sitting down gently beside her to avoid invoking her wrath. To think that, when they were young, Asuka wouldn't have even let him get THAT close.

He would've been too terrified to even get NEAR her.

Terrified? No, not really terrified, but just unwilling to hear her shout and scream like she used to do all the time. Sure, they were just teens in the years before Third Impact, but even so, he wondered if he had loved her even then. When all had gone to Hell as the clock was minutes to midnight, she was the one he went to, who he begged for help, for attention. It was always her, not Misato, not Rei, certainly not his father, her. Of course, then he had done that horrible thing to her, a thing that he felt disgusted by. His psychologists, as following the hell of Third Impact they were all given well-needed psychologists, told him that what he did was just an act after being forced to kill the one person who said he loved him after watching every one of those near and dear to Shinji either lose their minds, die, or emotionally abandon him. He was just desperate, and wasn't in a right state of mind to make proper decisions.

That being said, he still hated what he did.

He didn't have the right, no matter how the doctors rationalized, to masturbate over his comatose friends.

He sat down next to the girl, only to tentatively reach out for her, but drew his hand away, despite the band around his finger that he had given to her one-month prior. He glanced at it, in a dazed sort of way, and remembered the preparation it took to actually gather enough courage to go and propose to the German. For someone like Shinji, that was easier said than done. It wasn't like he was completely pathetic, just somewhat pathetic. That's how Shinji saw it, anyway. The fact of the matter was that the German, the Second Child, Asuka, was, for all intents and purposes, a tough girl to understand. Even now, YEARS after they first met, he didn't know much about her. He knew that her mother had died, although he didn't know how, he knew she still didn't care for her stepmother, or to be honest any of her family, all that much, how she still prided herself on her abilities as an Eva Pilot despite not being in the cockpit of the Eva for at least a decade, but most of what he knew of her was from the period of time he had spent with her.

As he laid down beside her, his mind wandered away, off into a distant time, years ago, until he had returned to that blood-red sea and dead looking beach, with the massive pieces of Rei Ayanami's naked body, pieces that dwarfed skyscrapers, drifting eerily in the water, buoyant somehow despite their mass. The girl known as Asuka Langley Sohryu was currently sleeping on the sand. It had probably been a few weeks since she had returned, for, despite still being in that red plug suit of hers, stained with even darker crimson blood, Shinji had removed the bandages around her arm and the eye patch on her eye. Although surgery had rid the German of any trace of these injuries, back then, they were infected and flaming. Her arm, the arm that had been bisected in her final battle, had somehow healed up down the middle, but not without leaving a great big scar. Her eye, gouged out in that same battle, had partially healed when she returned from the sea of LCL. Although the eyeball itself occupied her eye socket, it was completely blind, and, occasionally, she cried crimson tears. However, what agonized the scarlet haired girl the most was her organs.

In the battle with the Mass Production Evas, Asuka's Evangelion had been disemboweled. Due to the great level of synchronization with her Eva, her organs too had been skewered inside of her body. At least that's how Asuka had explained it after she had recovered from the shock of dying and returning to life in this Hell. Shinji wasn't sure just how much damage Asuka had retained in her returning to life, and he was not knowledgeable when it came to the human anatomy.

All he knew was that, when she cried out in pain and began gagging on her own blood, he was afraid.

Shinji had weaved a makeshift blanket together using reeds he had found on the side of the beach. It was sloppy, ill-made, but it was enough to keep one warm in the cold nights on that beach, waiting for someone else to return. Crabs and other sea animals had returned, so surely living humans were next. He had glanced over at Asuka, who was tossing and turning on the sandy beach. He had approached her, and, tentatively, laid the blanket over her, the stiff reeds splintering as he attempted to tuck the blanket around her, hoping it would keep her warm.

He needed her.

He needed someone.

Before he could finish covering her cold svelte body with the reeds, however, her eyes snapped open. She pushed herself up, ripping the reed blanket to pieces. Shinji had watched as all that hard work, all that time and effort putting together some sort of protection from the cold environment, turn out to be all for naught. Shinji didn't even see Asuka vomit a profuse amount of blood as she gasped for air, crying to herself as she squeezed her side. He only noticed her plight when she fell to the ground, twitching slightly on the floor.

"Asuka!" he had shouted, darting to her side, reaching out for her.

He slapped his hand away.

"Don't touch me," Asuka whispered in her weak voice, between gasps of air, "Don't get near me. Don't look at me. I don't want to see your disgusting face ever again."

Shinji could only stare in shock. All he wanted to do was help her. That was it. It couldn't be a sin to want to help the only other human being alive with him, right? Surely she didn't have to be this cruel, this harsh, to him. All he wanted to do was help. That was it. Just help out a little bit, and she was hurting him. "But I—"

"Don't speak!" Asuka shrieked, only to vomit out blood once more.

"You're—" Shinji was interrupted when Asuka slammed her backhand across his face. He fell against the sandy floor, his face red, his lip bleeding slightly.

"This is all your fault," Asuka mumbled, barely able to speak as she quivered in pain, clutching herself as she tried to steady herself, "All your fault. You let them kill me. You let them kill mama. And all you did was just sit there on your ass and listen to them rip me to shreds! You didn't do anything! You could have helped, stopped them from eating me or disemboweling me or stabbing me, but oh no! You chose to come out once I was in shreds! You bastard! You let mama die!"

"Mama?" To this day, Shinji had no idea what she was talking about. He assumed she was a little hysterical, maybe even a tad confused, following her death. He wouldn't know. Unlike her, he had never died.

Asuka fell to her knees, holding herself weakly as she whispered, softly, "Mama, I'm ready. Please, let's die together. Please. Just this once. Please? I'm ready now, mama."

"What's wrong?"

Shinji woke up, sweating profusely, as he turned to see Asuka, a confused expression on her face, in his bed, not vomiting blood, not hitting him violently, not begging to die with her mother, but just there, staring at him, an eyebrow raised. "Huh? What do you mean by that?" Shinji finally managed to say, knowing full well he must have been tossing and turning in bed.

"You were fidgeting around. You looked upset, like, really upset. I mean, were you having another flashback or something?"

"Yeah, I guess," Shinji confessed.

"You guess, huh? That just figures. Getting all nostalgic on us once Hikari has a baby. Typical." She sighed, resting a hand on her breasts as she asked, calmly, "So what was it this time?"

"I don't remember—"

"C'mon! You know you're not going to feel any better unless you talk about it, and besides, what kind of an answer is you don't remember anyway!? That's like freaking telling someone that you heard a really big secret and you said, 'Oh! I can't tell you! It's a secret!' You don't just start talking about something only to stop talking about it five seconds later! It's a freakin' tease!"

Resigning, he said, simply, "The beach."

"Oh, that." Her face deflated somewhat. "That was years ago, and you know it."

"I know, but still, you were so—"

"You know, these blankets sure are heavy," Asuka interrupted, pulling herself out of bed, "It's getting hot in there."

"What do you mean? The blankets are perfectly fine," Shinji replied, confused.

"Oh, I guess I won't take them off, then," Asuka replied, simply, as she removed her shirt.

"What're you doing!?" Shinji stammered, staring at her incredulously.

"I'm taking my clothes off, what does it look like?" she replied, simply.

"Yeah, I can see that, but why!?"

"Well, if you won't let me take off the blanket, how else do you expect me to cool down?" she asked, simply.

"Well—"

"What? Afraid to sleep with a woman without any clothing on?" she teased, in a mocking tone.

Feeling a minor sensation of déjà vu, Shinji replied, indignantly, "No! I'm not afraid! Go ahead and strip! See what I care!"

"Okay," she replied, in a surprisingly pleased tone. She ripped the remainder of her clothing off, revealing her naked form, save for her bra and panties. Shinji noticed the long thin scar that ran up her torso. When doctors and hospitals began to return, they had operated on her. It wound up that numerous organs had been damaged. It was a miracle she had survived for weeks on the beach like that. They told her that she must have someone high up looking after her.

She said it was her mama.

"Okay, now don't think anything dirty or I'll kill you," Asuka replied as she curled up next to Shinji, pressing her cheek to his bosom.

"Uh—" With that statement, Shinji's eyes focused on his fiancé's cleavage. He couldn't help it! You couldn't just say "Don't think dirty thoughts" and NOT attract a man's attention to those key locations. He hated himself for it, but he couldn't help it. She didn't help situations, either, when she began to glare at him through narrowed eyes, her nails digging into his chest, with a look that clearly expressed her utmost desire to strangle him.

"You're thinking something dirty, aren't you?"

"Sorry?" Shinji replied, inching away slowly from Asuka. He watched as his fiancé's fist rose into the air, through the blankets, as he lightly punched his shoulder.

"I'll kill you in the morning, okay?"

"Alright?"

"Hey, Shinji?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm freezing! Taking off my clothes was not a bright idea. Can I get a little closer?"

"Uh, okay."

"Thanks." The German moved closer, inching closer and closer until he could feel her breasts press against his chest, her soft torso pressed up against his, her firm legs wrapped around his, her arms curled around his chest. He always knew that Asuka was about as tall as he was, but to have her up against him like this just proved to him that either he was a small guy or she was a pretty tall woman. After a few moments, she murmured, "Your breath is tickling me."

Shinji knew he had experienced this once before. This sounded so oddly familiar, but he just couldn't place the—wait a second! Asuka had said all of this sort of stuff before their first kiss together! She had used some sort of excuse to find themselves into a situation to reach her designated goal, in that case kissing him, goaded him into going her way by calling him afraid, and had even said how Shinji's breath tickled her. The only question is why would do something like that right now? What did she have to gain by stripping almost completely naked in bed with Shinji almost immediately after Hikari had a baby, which could only be created by having—

Oh.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**

"Hey! Get back here! Stop crying!"

"You know, it's strange seeing you as a mom, Hikari."

"You really think so?"

It was a shock to see her freckled, brown haired friend as anything other than the class representative she had first met in middle school, a girl who took charge of her classes with her loud, occasionally militaristic orders. Still, Hikari Suzuhara, as Asuka still had to remember was now her full name, looked almost a little comical after a few weeks of being a mom. She was clinging to her little boy, whom Hikari called Shinji, but Asuka called Shin-chan, who was putting up quite a fit. They had changed his diaper, but it looked like he was more interested in something else, specifically the fluid contents of Hikari's plumped breasts.

Asuka had to admit that, for a woman who had only given birth a couple weeks ago, she sure had adjusted well to the new situations related to motherhood. Sure, she hadn't lost all the baby fat that she had accumulated while bringing her bouncing rugrat into the world, but she had lost a good deal of it, enough to the point where she looked much like her old self again. With a smile on her face, she pressed her child's lips against her exposed breast, and breastfed him. It was only after a few seconds that she realized that Asuka was in the room with her, watching this somewhat personal moment. Blushing, she said, "Sorry about this."

"Hey, don't worry about it. It's natural," she shrugged, "Nothin' awkward about feeding your baby."

"Thanks. Where's Shinji?"

"He's sucking on your—"

"Not that one!"

"Oh! You mean the idiot! Well, he's at work right now," Asuka replied, scratching her cheek absentmindedly. The idiot. The words seemed to ring off her tongue, almost in an affectionate sort of way, as though she were beating him with a smile on her face. It was strange. Sure, she could be abusive, but he never did leave her, did he? He never did abandon her. Sure, in the past they had their struggles, but now, everything had balanced itself out just about right, hadn't it?

"You really like him, don't you?" Hikari replied, smiling.

"He's just an idiot," Asuka restated.

"Yeah, but he cooks, helps clean around the house while you just laze there eating potato chips," Hikari pointed out.

"Blunt today, are we?"

Hikari giggled again, blushing deep red. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. Hey, where's that other stooge, Toji?" Asuka hadn't seen him once since she set foot in the Suzuhara residence. It was strange. It wasn't uncommon for Toji to spend time with Shinji while she was here, but at least she saw him. Now it was as though he had been a ghost that had recently been exorcised.

"Well, he's out getting stuff for the baby, or at least that's what he said the moment he heard you were coming," Hikari replied.

"Dummkopf," Asuka murmured, resentfully. That idiot just took off an ran just because of her arrival? What an asshole! He was all fun and games with Shinji, but the moment Shinji's soon-to-be wife arrived, he had to get out of there! Figures. What an asshole. Sure, she wasn't always the sweetest person to him, but still, did he have to prove to her that he was an asshole?

"Well, in all fairness, you do have a tendency to yell at him," Hikari said.

"Well, yeah, but that's only when he's being a complete and utter moron."

"But it's half of the time you're with us?"

"Er ist ein Idiot!" Asuka replied, bluntly.

"Come again?"

"He's an idiot!" she replied, a laugh on her tongue, but, midway through her giggle, she clasped her hand on her mouth as she struggled to hold back a sudden wave of nausea, a wave that had hit her without warning, without any previous signs, without any sort of ANYTHING preceding it. She darted to the bathroom, where she knelt down by the toilet seat as she threw it open, lowering her mouth to the open water, waiting for vomit to spill from her mouth.

Thankfully, after waiting for a few minutes, the sudden urge to vomit faded away, but the nausea hadn't.

"Hey! Are you alright?" Hikari asked, darting into the room after placing her baby safely into his crib.

"Yeah, just felt a little sick all of a sudden," she replied, holding a hand on her lower belly as she rose to her feet.

"Are you sick?"

"A little, I think. I'm not sure. This has been happening for the last few days, since last Monday, so I guess I'm just having a stomach virus or something like that, you know? It's nothing to be too worried about. Just a little bit of medicine and—"

"Uh, are you sure about that?" Hikari asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't get sick too often," Hikari replied.

"Yeah, so this is just one of those infrequent times I'm actually feeling under the—"

"When was the last time you had your period?"

"Well—wait a second! Just what're you implying by that!?" snapped Asuka, staring dumbfounded at her friend, her eyes wavering in their sockets.

"Well, you might be pregnant for all we know," Hikari replied, "I mean, I felt really nauseous, and if you've been feeling nauseous since last Monday, and today's Sunday, that means you've been feeling this way for a week!"

"So?"

"That's a little more than a few days," Hikari replied, "Look, maybe I'm just jumping to conclusions, but have you and Shinji, er, well, have you—" Asuka's face, which had turned a darker shade of red than the hair on her head, answered Hikari's question for her. "You know, I have a pregnancy test think left over from when I was pregnant. I should probably get that right now."

"I'm not pregnant! I'd know if I was pregnant!"

-----

Shinji was sitting behind his desk, staring up at the ceiling as he always did during these slow days. The fact that he was a former pilot of the Evangelion seemed to be enough reason for him to be given a job at NERV, but the fact that he had been assigned as one of the heads of the newly instated NERV seemed a little extreme. He wasn't a soldier, didn't know anything about the new society, which had focused itself on militaristic defense and the aid of nations throughout the world who were recovering after the horrors of Third Impact. His job essentially meant working out peace treaties between nations NERV seemed to like, proposing to his superiors to veto other peace treaties in order to eliminate cruel and abusive governments, and, of course, searching for souls returning from the sea of LCL, which had shrunk in the years following Third Impact. It had shrunk from a massive planet-sized ocean to a sea located near the Tigris and Eurphrates Rivers, where, according to the numerous religious cults that had sprang up following the horrors of Instrumentality, that the Abrahamic Bible designated that the Garden of Eden existed.

Garden of Eden? What a joke.

The phone at his desk rang. As he answered it, he expected to hear his superiors on the other line. "Hello, this is Shinji Ikari speaking." He expected some order, some new job for him to handle. However, he DIDN'T expect a high pitched female voice to shout at him from the top of her lungs, a voice so loud that she had to draw the phone at least an arm's length away from his ear to actually hear properly.

"You stupid idiot! How could you?! You stupid, stupid, jerk! You disgusting pervert, I should've never trusted you for a second! Schwein! Dummkopf! Bastard! Seducer! Schmutz der Erde!"

"Wait, just hold on a second Asuka—!"

"Don't you just tell me to hold on a second, you stupid idiot!"

"Just what're you yelling about?"

"Oh! Don't act like you don't know you idiot!"

"I don't know! You just started yelling at me and—" Shinji was interrupted when the door opened. In walked the elderly Commander Fuyutsuki, a man who had miraculously managed to keep his job, no, be promoted to head of NERV following the controversy NERV received following Third Impact.

"Ikari-san, we have—"

"Don't you just play stupid and act like the innocent little oaf everyone thinks you are! Schwein!"

"On second thought, I'll leave you two alone." Fuyutsuki backed out of the room, closed the door over, and, if Shinji's ears didn't deceive him, sprinted as far away from the room as possible.

Why did he have to leave him alone with this insanity?

"But what's going on? I don't understand what's happening."

On the other side of the line, Shinji could hear a second voice speak. He barely made out, "Asuka, let me speak to him for a second. You're being hysterical!" only to have the rest of Hikari Suzuhara's interruption blocked out by more of his fiancé's shouting.

"You made me—you made me—"

"Made you what?"

"Pregnant!"

Shinji stared at the phone for a moment or two, confused. Pregnant? Oh, wasn't that supposed to be a joyous event, filled with smiling and laughter, with a deeper connection of love and passion, without shouting and screaming? Why did everything have to be painful? "Uh, congratulations?"

"Don't you 'congratulations' me, you jerk! You made me pregnant! You seducing little—"

"Seducing? I didn't seduce you!"

"Well, what about a few weeks ago when you essentially raped me in your bed? Hmmm?"

"Raped you? What the hell are you talking about? You went into the bed with no clothing on and we made love!"

"Oh, don't use that old blame me routine of yours! You need to accept responsibility for your actions, you jerk!"

"How about you accept responsibilities for once? You went into a bed wearing nothing!"

"I was too wearing something!"

"You were wearing panties and a bra, and were using the same tactics you used when we were kids when you made me kiss you! What was I supposed to think!?"

"Oh, don't use that old excuse on me again!"

"When was the last time I ever made that excuse before, anyway?"

"Oh! Don't change the subject!"

"I didn't!"

"Oh, you stupid—Hey! Hikari! What're you—?"

The other end of the line began to ruffle and tremble. Shinji drew the phone closer to his ear, sure to hear Hikari's voice as opposed to Asuka's high pitched shrill. Thankfully, his expectations were fulfilled. "Hey, listen, don't mind her, she's just a little upset right now. She'll cool off once she adjusts to everything."

"Uh, okay." Cool off? He hoped that happened soon. If Asuka was upset with him, chances are he wouldn't even be let into the house, left outside of a barricaded door in the dark. The weatherman forecasted thunderstorms, too. "Listen, uh, how did you guys find out she was pregnant, exactly?"

"A pregnancy test."

"Oh, uh, how accurate is it?"

"Pretty accurate."

"I see. Uh, thanks, Hikari."

"Don't mention it."

"I'm going to hang up now—"

"Dummkopf! Don't you dare hang up on me you idiot!" Shinji pulled the phone away from his ear in shock, staring at it, his eyes wide with fear, as though the wires would come alive to strangle him.

"I'm at work! I can't keep talking on the phone! I have to hang up now!"

"I hope they fire you, you son of a—" Shinji slammed the receiver down, exhaling slowly as he leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling once more.

Pregnant?

A child?

Asuka?

Father.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 4**

"If you will do it, do it now! Otherwise, leave!"

"I have a use for you."

"Leave!"

The voice of the ghost from his past haunted his mind, enveloped his concentration as he drove home. The thought of his fiancé being pregnant and the no doubt violent rage that awaited him at home was in the back of his head. No, the young adult known as Shinji Ikari was focused on a man from the past, a man who he had not seen for the past decade, a man who still haunted him after all this time. A man with a long chinstrap beard, glasses, white gloves, and a cold, calculating glare that would leave you shivering in your boots.

"Father."

The father who abandoned him, who left him miserable and desperate in the world, alone, only to be a miserable wreck from childhood to adolescence. The horrors of Third Impact and the world that followed it had left him horror struck for the years after it, but every so often Shinji would remember the bastard of a father he had, unloving and uncaring. The only person he had ever met who had a kind thing to say about that man was Shinji Ikari's superior, the current Commander of NERV itself: Fuyutsuki.

Shinji remembered when NERV had first been recommissioned by the World Government. Fuyutsuki, who had offered an explanation of the whole ordeal of Third Impact, was allowed to lead the organization, especially considering how Fuyutsuki decided to lend his effort reconstructing the Japanese government during the horrors of the early post-Third Impact world. Fuyutsuki was quick to hire all the old members of NERV, including the Eva pilots. Maya had been put in charge of the science department, Hyuga had become one of the head tacticians, Aoba was head of Weapon Development and the unofficial musician for the NERV Christmas parties, Misato was promoted to sub-commander, both he and Asuka were given high ranking jobs. Their schedules, thankfully, rarely clashed, so if they did have a child, they'd be able to raise—

Father.

That set Shinji back on track. He remembered when Fuyutsuki had first hired him. Shinji had refused, or at least was hesitant. This was his father's company, not his. He didn't want to be reminded of that man, that bastard, anymore than he had to. It was then that Fuyutsuki had said, wearily, "You know, your father would've wanted me to give you this high paying job, you know? One day you'll know this."

The man who left him alone as a child for years, only called him when he needed him, and left him an emotional train wreck would have wanted him to work in a corporation that had been labeled, in the modern media, "The Modern Illuminati" and "The Founders of Third Impact"?

Yeah, that sounded like something he'd do.

Apparently Fuyutsuki cared so deeply about his father that he had erected a statue in his honor outside the NERV entrance. After all, nowadays NERV was a public organization, no longer a secret Government society. Because it was public, people walked by the statue of Gendo Ikari standing majestically every day, and, every day, someone would throw rotten fruit against its bust. While Fuyutsuki would sometimes personally clean the statue to ensure it was in pristine condition, Shinji actually wished that, one day, he could throw a giant watermelon against his father's face so that it would splatter against his nose line, covering his face in red as he shouted all the things he couldn't say a decade ago.

None of those unsaid words were all too polite.

Still, when Shinji's son—er, child—was born, he's make sure he—or she—never had to suffer that horrible fate of having a father ignore him, of abandoning him—or her—entirely. Still, raising his child the way he wanted to raise him would mean Shinji returning home to face his violent, ill-tempered fiancé. She sounded so angry over the phone, so entirely furious. What was he going to do? She wasn't the type to exactly forgive and forget quickly. Years ago, Asuka was a more violent individual, especially following Third Impact.

He pulled over at a supermarket, looking for some sort of way to stall, to escape needing to return home to face the horror of his German haired lover—no, good friend—no, acquaintance—no, mortal enemy. Anxiously, he withdrew his mp3 player, and escaped into the gentle music it supplied. His old SDAT player, even at the time he used it constantly antiquated, had vanished during the horror of Third Impact. He had sought to get a replacement, but, as it were, had never really came around to purchasing one. However, the mp3 player he used now was a gift from Asuka.

It had been a birthday present, his twenty first birthday. It had been a little more than a year or two since the world had fully recovered from the Hell of Third Impact. Most people often give others, on their twenty first birthday, something to signify the newfound privileges gained with their age. Toji, for example, bought him a pornographic DVD, much to both Hikari and Asuka's distaste. Kensuke, on the other hand, bought him a guidebook to the best bars in Tokyo-3. Misato had given him an expensive bottle of sake. Asuka would later joke that they were lucky that the bottle wasn't half empty by the time Shinji received it. Shinji expected things to allure him to the benefits of being an adult, but the gift that seemed to impact Shinji most was a gift that reminded him of the past.

"It's not like I needed to put that much thought into it," Asuka had rationalized after Shinji opened the present, turning the case over and over to see the present from every possible angle, "I just remember how you liked listening to that old tape player of yours all the time when we were younger. I mean, I knew that you wanted to have a tape player or whatever it was you had, but this is better. It has 100 gigabytes of memory, so you can fit a bunch of songs on it, and play some games like Solitaire on it. Also, it comes with a dozen songs on it, and you can play videos on it. So yeah, no big deal."

"How much did this cost?" Shinji had asked, worried that his friend had spent too much on someone like him.

"Why the hell does that matter?" Asuka snapped, "Look, you're actually caring about stuff like that? C'mon! Seriously! It's a damn gift! Never mind what it costs!"

Shinji could only stare at her in awe. Even though she had a confident grin on her lips, he knew that, deep down, she had been afraid that Shinji didn't like her present. That, below that harsh exterior, she had asked herself, day after day, would he like it? Would he accept it? "Thank you, Asuka!"

"Hey, seriously, don't mention it."

As he focused again on the reality before him as he picked up a package of miso, Shinji Ikari focused on a separate memory. He recalled a day after following the nightmare that was Third Impact. It had been a month after Asuka returned that either of them dared to leave the sanctuary of the beach. Why it had taken so long Shinji didn't know. He guessed that, after witnessing the world die before them, they really didn't feel like adventuring the depths of oblivion. Perhaps it was because the sea of LCL had provided for them so well, with crabs and sea creatures right there for eating and the LCL sea there for nutritious life fluids. Additionally, in Asuka's condition, she couldn't move all that far without her organs bleeding within her.

Shinji had been constructing a wheelbarrow of sorts to carry the German. He had constructed it from driftwood that had miraculously came to them from the sea about two weeks after Shinji had found Asuka beside him. Having nothing else to do, he whittled the log until it had depth, enough to cradle a human body. The wheel, thankfully, had washed up on shore not long after he found the wood. It was something you'd find on a big wheel bicycle a toddler would use. It wasn't the best sort of barrow, but in this sort of situation, it was the best he had.

"I won't go in that," Asuka had said the moment she saw Shinji's creation, her voice dead and exhausted.

"Listen, we're going to have to see if anyone else is here," Shinji had said, surprised by his own sense of bravery. After baring witness to Instrumentality, he had learned to face reality head on. The only way their situation was going to change for the better was if they faced the world head on. Shinji had been surprised that Asuka, who was always so gung-ho and always looking for a solution. She was never this passive, or perhaps hesitant to do anything, before. "You're too injured to walk. The only way we're going to survive is if you get on and I wheel you around."

"I don't care if I die," Asuka replied, in an almost dead voice, "Just leave me alone. I'd rather die than be with you."

"Listen! Please! Snap out of it!" Shinji had shouted as he had heaved the German to her feet, hoping she'd stand on her own two feet.

She hadn't.

Shinji had caught her before she had hit the floor. With a small grin on her lips, Asuka had asked, in a cold, strangely amused tone, "You mean you don't want me to die?"

"Why would I want you to die?" Shinji had stammered, now desperate, his eyes starting to tear.

"Why else would you leave me alone to die like that? Why else would you just jerk off on top of me, huh? Why else would you start strangling me the moment I came back to life? I don't want this. I just want to be left alone here, and die. Just let me shrivel up and die."

"Please don't talk like that."

"Why? It makes our poor little bastard Shinji the Hero get all upset? Do you want to cry, huh? Well, face reality: it's your fault I'm like this, why the world's like this! It's all your fault!" She had begun screaming as she slowly pushed herself into a standing position. However, as she continued to shout obscenities at the Third Child, she began to vomit on herself. Torrents of blood exploded from her mouth, dying the sand scarlet. She trembled, falling onto her back, clutching her belly. Tears filled her eyes, tears of pain, tears of fury and anger, tears that shone in the pale moonlight.

He was sure, then and there, that she was going to die.

"Please, don't die! Don't die! I need you. I need you. I can't just live without someone, so please don't leave me alone!" He had fallen to his knees, tears running down his fourteen year old cheeks as he stared down at the broken girl as she coughed again and again, more droplets of ruby splattering against her lips and cheeks.

"Well, isn't this what you wanted? Me like this? Dummkopf!" she had grunted between coughs, "I hope you like it. I hate you so God d—" Shinji scooped her into his arms. She was surprisingly light, much lighter than he had anticipated, as he dumped her gently into the wheelbarrow. "What're you doing? I told you I'm not—hyakk!!!" She coughed loudly onto her lap, a large wad of blood splattering against her thighs.

Shinji remembered praying that a doctor or surgeon had returned from the sea of LCL, just so that Asuka wouldn't have to die in a make-shift wheelbarrow in the middle of nowhere like this. She didn't deserve to suffer like that, didn't deserve to die such a sad, pathetic death like this.

She didn't deserve to suffer after all she had been through.

Shinji Ikari was pulled out of his flashback as the sound of his phone ringing filled the air. He hastily reached into his pocket, and withdrew his cell. "Hello?" he asked, not looking at the caller ID in his haste.

"Shinji! I just heard the good news!"

"Misato?"

A cheerful giggle met his ears from the other side of the phone line, a giggle that reminded him of all the times he had spent living at her house when he and Asuka were only fourteen and thirteen years old, respectfully. It reminded him, strangely enough, of a young girl, despite Shinji having, in memory, associated Misato as the closest thing to a mother he ever had. "Well, Asuka called me and told me the whole story. Or at least told me her side of it."

"Oh, did she?"

"Yeah, complete with calling you a few creative curse words that my kids have been repeating for the past ten minutes."

"Do you believe her?"

"What kind of a question is that? Of course I don't! I know you too well for that. I'm just surprised you actually managed to, uh, go to home base."

"Come again?"

"I can't say it with the kids around. Uh, hey!" Misato's voice faded away slightly, as though she were holding the phone a good deal away from her face and talking to her children. "Yumi, take your brother over into the other room, alright? Don't ask why! I'm having an adult conversati—no, you aren't grown up enough to know what it is. Thanks, sweetie." Her voice returned to its ordinary volume. "No, I mean, I never expected you to have sex."

"Wait, what?!"

"I thought you'd just remain a virgin for the rest of your—"

"Misato. Stop now."

"Alright, I'm just joking!"

"I hope you were."

"But still, what're you going to name the baby?"

Shinji considered this. "I haven't really discussed it with Asuka. Actually, I haven't discussed anything with her yet."

"Oh, did she kick you out of the house?"

"I haven't even gotten home yet. I'm a little afraid to."

"Well, you can't run away from this forever, you know. Best get the worst over with. She'll calm down soon, so don't worry."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Oh, absolutely positive! Asuka isn't the type to keep a grudge."

"Are you sure about that?" Shinji asked, seriously.

"Well, uh…" Misato's voice trailed off, leaving Shinji with the distinct impression she was struggling to buy time. "Oh crap! Ryouji! Stop hitting your sister! I got to go! See ya! Good luck with the preggy!" With that, the line died. Shinji personally doubted that she had any sort of problem with her kids at that moment. For a woman who told him not to run away, she sure was running away when he needed her. What a reliable adult she was.

After paying for his food, Shinji continued into his car, and drove back home to face the music, to face his destiny. His mp3 player was still playing in his ears as he rode back home, despite a perfectly good car radio and stereo system. All he could think about was that redhead. He tried to remember the last time she was truly furious at him, the last time she had been this angry. When they were younger, they had argued constantly, but, as time went on, these arguments seemed to dwindle. That's not saying they didn't happen frequently, though. For example, just a few months ago they had found themselves arguing about something trivial, something regarding food.

"You know I like my burgers with a little red in them," Asuka had snapped, staring down at the deep brown meet with a disgusted expression.

"It's healthier when it's thoroughly cooked," Shinji had replied.

"Yeah, but it's also all dried up! Do you want me eating a dried up burger like this?" she had replied, her tone harsh.

"Just put ketchup on it and it won't be dry. Problem sol—"

"Doesn't change the fact that the middle is still all brown!" Asuka had interrupted, violently, "I mean, seriously, I think the burgers at McDonalds are better!"

"Well, you could just order from there. Their burgers are thoroughly brown too, I think."

"Yeah, but it's also not really meat! It's some meat substitute they have with a lot of filler in it! And besides, it makes you fat."

"You seem to eat it enough on your way to work," Shinji replied.

At that moment, the German had jumped to her feet, crushing her burger underneath her fist as she slammed her knuckles down against the table. "Are you implying something!?"

"Implying what?"

"Dummkopf! You think I'm a damn porker, don't you!?" she had snapped, her face scarlet.

"Who ever said that?" Shinji had laughed in disbelief. Fat? Asuka was a stick. Her breasts probably contained more fat than the rest of her body combined, sure, but otherwise she was stick. Slender, svelte. When they were younger, there were even times Shinji wondered if she was too thin. In any case, the sheer idea that Shinji could even think, for a second, that she was fat was downright absurd!

"Don't you laugh at me! I—" A moment had passed where Asuka considered all that she had just said. More blush ran up her cheeks as she muttered, in a soft tone, "I'm doing it again, aren't I?"

"Doing what?"

The redhead had lowered herself into her seat, running a hand up her hair. "I'm just blowing things out of proportion like I always do. Say it. I know I'm right."

"Well, yeah, you are," Shinji replied.

She had sighed again at this, holding her head in both hands. "I'm just a wreck, aren't I? I'm never going to change. I'll still be just as much of a bitch as I was when I was a kid."

"Huh? What're you talking about?" Shinji had asked, confused.

"Do you know what I heard some people saying at work? They were talking about me behind my back! I heard them, you know. They were chatting away about that German girl who has trouble reading Kanji or that German bitch who was a pilot or that German bitch who thinks she's so hot."

"Who's been saying that?" Shinji had asked, critically.

"A bunch of the girls who work there."

"Do you know any of them."

"I don't know," she had replied, rising to her feet, "I shouldn't let it bother me, though. I'm better than that. I've grown up. I'm not a kid. I'm not a kid. I'm not a kid. I'm not a kid. I'm not—"

"You know, if someone hurts you, it's not immature not to feel a little insulted," Shinji had said, frowning, "In fact, I think it's kinda natural to feel something."

"But I don't like it," Asuka had replied, frowning as well, "I mean, why me?"

Why me indeed. As Shinji approached the door to his apartment complex, his bags in hand and his spirits tentative, he paused a moment to remove his mp3 player, ready to face reality. As he drew nearer to the door, he mumbled under his breath the mantra that he had recited over and over again throughout the course of his life: "I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away." He recited it again and again as he rang the doorbell with his elbow, unable to reach the button with his hands, laden with bags.

The door slid open to reveal the German girl. Just laying eyes on Asuka sent a jolt through Shinji's body. There she was, ready to beat him to a pulp, ready to shout and scream at him, ready to call him an idiot and remind him that it was his fault, not Asuka the girl who crawled into his be naked, that she had a baby growing inside of her. He flinched at first, instinctively, upon laying eyes on her flaming red hair. A second or two past before Shinji lowered his arms, only to meet his fiancé's eyes. They were puffy, but not tear laden. It was as though she had cried hours before, and the residual effects had yet to wear off. Cautiously, Shinji murmured, "I'm home," before walking anxiously past his fiancé into the kitchen. As he dropped the bags onto the kitchen table, he heard the door slide shut behind him. This was it. Asuka was going to pummel him now. She was going to shout now that the door was closed and the world couldn't see her ugly side.

"Asuka, I'm sor—"

"Don't apologize," Asuka replied, "Don't worry about it. I should be the one saying sorry."

"Huh?" This was a tad different than what he had been expecting. He had thought at least one piece of furnature would be overturned, a few shouting matches, and at least fifty verbal punches matched with fifty real ones. He didn't expect her to just admit defeat so easily. He watched as Asuka fell into a couch, her hands resting on her torso. She glanced up at Shinji, a frown o her lips.

"I'm sorry. I said it, alright? Isn't that good enough?"

"What do you—"

"You didn't do anything wrong, I should've been taking the pill, all that stuff, alright?" Asuka said, her tone mildly frustrated, "Jesus! How many times do I have to say this again?" Her voice cracked mildly toward the end, but her resolve was strong. Her eyes were growing slightly more moist as the seconds past, but her heart didn't waver. She stared at Shinji with a deep resolve, as though she were hoping, praying, that her eyes relayed the message deep inside of her: she was sorry. She was wrong.

She admitted defeat.

Shinji sighed in relief. "You know, for a moment, I was afraid you were going to kill me."

"I'd rather not have my baby girl not have a father," Asuka replied.

"Wait, who said it was a girl? It could be a boy."

"Yes, but it could also be a girl!"

"Are we fighting again?"

"We damn sure are fighting! I say it's a girl!"

"It doesn't even have a gender yet, does it?"

"You know, I honestly don't think so yet."

"We'll have more than enough time to realize if it's a boy or a girl, so don't worry about that," Shinji replied, frowning tensely.

"Alright, I guess so," Asuka replied, rising to her feet, her hands on her stomach, "I'm just bummed that I need to gain weight for this thing! That's going to suck!"

"You're skinny enough as it is. I doubt even twenty extra pounds would—"

"Twenty!? Who'd say I'd gain that much!?" Asuka's eyes were wide, as though Shinji had just informed her she was dying of terminal cancer. Shinji was mildly surprised by this reaction. You'd think that she'd know about this sort of thing seeing as how she graduated from a German university at the age of 13 AND was a girl.

"I thought everyone knew about—"

"Don't give me that bull! Well, if I am gaining weight for YOUR child, make me dinner. Now."

"You're saying that as though I never cook dinner."

"Yeah? So?" Asuka asked, in a rather harsh tone.

"Alright, my majesty," Shinji said in a sarcastic tone.

#

The stupid idiot was sleeping in bed next to her, but Asuka Langley Sohryu hadn't slept a wink yet. Her hand rested on her torso, absentmindedly adjusting the cloth around her belly. She knew that the baby hadn't even begun to develop yet, but she could almost feel the rug rat kicking. It was strange. Maybe it was a sensation brought up by paranoia, or stress. It was like being next to a sick person and developing a sore throat.

Still, she couldn't imagine herself being a mother. She didn't know the first thing about taking care of a child. What was she going to do? Feed it? Give it a nice, hospitable environment to live in? She could ask her stepmom, but she didn't want to really see her face right now. She knew she had to go back to Germany soon, though, if she was pregnant. Her family had the right to know.

Still, whenever she thought of Germany, the same memory returned to her mind's eye: the image of a doll dangling from a noose next to a limp human corpse, hanging from a similar noose, drifting back and forth, like a pendulum, dead, high above her head, high above the head of her child avatar. She cringed as the memory remained stuck in her brain. It wouldn't go away. It wasn't going away! The damn doll and the damn noose in that damned house! Damn them! Damn them! Damn them all!

She felt a tear roll down her cheek, a tear she brushed away aggressively. She wasn't a kid anymore! She couldn't just cry like that whenever something sad happened. She needed to be strong, stronger than anyone else. She had to be for her daughter—child. She couldn't become caught up in suffering, in the pain of memories of ancient history.

Memories of her mother.


	5. Chapter 5

**Part 5**

"So when's your belly gonna get big?"

"Shut up!"

"My mommy's got big when she had Ryouji."

"Misato, why do we have to baby sit for you right now?" Shinji asked, turning away from Asuka, who was beat red in the face as little Yumi queried her, curiously.

Misato, who was currently red in the face as she stared at Yumi asking rather awkward questions to the now pregnant Asuka, replied, with a note of laughter in her voice, "Well, I told you on the phone. Makoto and I need to go to that dinner. The higher ups are going. Fuyutsuki really is working us to the bone." Turning away from Shinji, Misato hastily approached her inquisitive daughter. She was a small little girl, 7 years of age, with a small body, the pudginess of youth still fresh in her body, despite now she'd grown a good deal. She inherited her mother's hair, but needed to wear glasses just like her father. As her mother bent down on a single knee to see her eye-to-eye, Yumi pressed her knuckles anxiously against her lip. "Now, sweetie, look, you can't just ask people like that. They may be, uh, a little sensitive."

"What do you mean?" Yumi asked with wide, watery eyes.

"I mean, some people are a little sensitive about things like the size of their bellies," Misato replied, trying to be tactful.

"But she isn't really any different from last time," Yumi replied, gesturing towards Asuka, who's torso was indeed nearly as flat as it was last time they had seen her. The only reason Shinji saw any difference at all in Asuka's anatomy was because they were living together. That was it. It was a very subtle change he could only see when she was naked, which was very infrequent to say the least. It was mostly that her abdominal muscles had sort of faded away, or were pushed outward ever so slightly.

"Yeah, well, I should be getting used to it," she had replied when Shinji had brought the subject up, "You know, it's weird. I'm a little worried about how my body's going to change, but somehow—WAIT A SECOND!!! Are you calling me fat or something? Dummkopf!"

Needless to say, Shinji doubted he'd be bringing up any developments on Asuka's—er—developments.

"Just don't bring it up, Yumi. Just be a good girl. Aunt Asuka is, well, not all that used to being a mother." Misato rose to her feet after giving her daughter a tight, brief hug, only to turn toward both Shinji and Asuka. "Look, think of it as a learning experience. I mean, think about it: you're going to be raising a baby soon. This is just a warm up act. Ryouji—where's Ryouji?"

Shinji glanced over his shoulder to see five-year-old Ryouji staring at the TV, transfixed by the images on the screen, in awe. He was watching some sort of program that clearly wasn't entirely age appropriate for him. Shinji wondered, absentmindedly, whether or not Misato had let him see this kind of stuff at their house, because neither Misato nor Yumi really reacted to seeing Ryouji watching a brutal action movie. Asuka glanced over him, and drew nearer to him, sitting cross-legged beside him, staring at the glowing screen. She reached for a bag of potato chips, only to rip it open. She picked a few chips from the bag, only to offer a few to Ryouji.

"Well, it looks like they're getting along well," Misato replied, mildly relieved, "Well, I gotta go!"

"Mommy! Can I have a kiss good-bye?" Yumi replied. Ryouji offered no such sentiment, completely consumed by the program.

"Okay." Misato hastily leaned in, kissed her daughter's forehead, only to dart out of the apartment, running for her car, eager to dart off to that dinner so she wouldn't need to be late. She left Shinji and Asuka alone with two children. It was only when the responsibility was fully deposited on Shinji that he panicked.

Watching Misato's children? What a crazy idea! He didn't know how to raise them! He didn't know the first thing about raising a child, but maybe that was the point. He'd just need to get to know them, that was all. How hard could it possibly be. "I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't—"

"What're you doing, Uncle Shinji?" Yumi asked, curiously.

"Huh? Nothing, don't worry." Turning to Yumi, anxious grimace on his face, he asked, curiously, "Well, what do you guys like to eat?"

"I want miso soup," Ryouji called from the TV, not turning around.

"Don't listen to him!" Yumi replied, "He doesn't know what he wants. Can you make some riceballs?"

"Miso soup!" Ryouji shouted, turning around to face Yumi.

"Miso stinks! Riceballs are better!"

"Miso!"

"Rice!"

"Miso!"

"Rice!"

"Why does this look so familiar?" Asuka asked, curiously.

"Don't know," Shinji replied, "I usually don't fight back, and when I do, you usually hit me."

"Good point."

"Miso!"

"Rice!"

"Miso!"

"Rice!"

"Shouldn't we be doing something to break them up?" Shinji asked.

"Yeah, I know! Make some German food!" Asuka declared.

"What?" Both Yumi and Ryouji turned toward the red head, curiously, "What's German food?"

"Mein Gott! You don't know what German food is?" Asuka asked, a sly smile on her lips, "Well, that's okay. Shinji, make it."

"What? What do you want me to make?"

Blushing, Asuka turned to Shinji, and loudly whispered into his ear, hastily. "I don't know! Just make something! Make Wiener Schnitzel. We have the ingrediants for that, right?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Well, get on it! I'm hungry!" Asuka whispered.

"Wait, aren't we making this for the kids?" Shinji asked, glancing at the German through narrowed eyes.

"Yeah! That's right. The kids. Right." Asuka pulled away, and turned toward the kids. "Hey, I have a question for you. You guys wanna play a video game?"

"What kind of game?" Ryouji asked, eagerly.

"I don't like those games," Yumi replied, anxiously pushing up her glasses.

"What? Afraid you can't beat me?" Asuka replied, a sneer on her lips.

"No I'm not!" Yumi insisted, balling up her hands into pudgy fists.

"Oh really? Then play!"

"I will!"

As Shinji made the German food, which really wasn't all that hard to do considering it was mostly a fried dish, she glanced over at Asuka as she played her game. Even though she was behaving much like a child herself, the children were having fun with her. She knew how to let them have a good time, knew what to say, even though it sometimes was a little mean. He knew, right then and there, that she was ready to be a mom. She would make an amazing mother for his son—er, child.

But would he really make all that good of a father?

"Shinji, for a Japanese person, you can at least cook decent German food," Asuka said, sampling the plate of fried food with an almost nostalgic glint in her eyes, "I've trained you well."

"Trained? All you did was buy me a German cook book and told you to make German stuff. You didn't train me at all," Shinji replied, his eyes narrowed.

"It's the same difference."

"This isn't half-bad," Ryouji replied as he nibbled on some of the dish.

"It's too fried," Yumi replied, disgusted, "I still want rice balls!"

"German food beats rice balls," replied Asuka, simply, with an amused grin, but not one without a hint of malice, "If you want rice balls that badly, I'm sure the invincible iron chef Shinji could make you some."

"It wouldn't be a problem," Shinji replied, smiling.

"Ah! So the invincible Shinji rises up to the challenge of making rice balls for a little girl," Asuka said, making Yumi giggle slightly, "I guess he can do just about anything! Even cook decent German food without a drop of that great blood in his system."

"Great blood?" Shinji replied, finishing his meal, which he had to say was too fried, wasn't his taste, and he would probably make rice balls for himself to get the lousy taste out of his mouth, "I don't know about that."

"Germany is the greatest nation in the world," Asuka proclaimed, "And don't you forget it, dummkopf!"

"Speaking of Germany, have you called your parents yet about you're, uh, pregnancy?" Shinji asked as he withdrew the rice cooker from a cabinet.

"Oh, my parents?" Shinji glanced over at his fiancé. Her eyes glanced down at her dish as she ran her hands through her hair, averting her gaze from anyone's eyes. "I actually, uh, haven't even told them we were engaged yet."

"You haven't?" Shinji stammered. That entire time Shinji had asked Asuka if she had asked her parents if they were going to be at the wedding, and yet, all this time, she hadn't. There had to be a reason, just had to be, why she wouldn't inform her own family of such an important occasion.

"Yeah, uh, sorry?"

"Don't worry about it. When are you going to tell them? They do deserve to know."

"I'll call 'em eventually. Sooner than later. Maybe." Once again, she averted her gaze.

"You can't run away from this," Shinji replied.

"Coming from you, Mr. 'I Mustn't Run Away', I don't think you're in any position to be telling me that," Asuka replied, snidely, but not harshly.

"But I mean, you rarely mention your parents, but I'm sure they miss you," Shinji said, smiling, "I mean, they can't be anything like my father was." Upon stating that, the words "my father," an image emerged in Shinji's brain. An image of himself, years from now, having grown a chin-strap beard like his father, staring down at his future son, a weedy awkward youngster much like he had been, huddled in a corner as he, Shinji, reprimanded him, speaking in Shinji's voice but in an uncharacteristically harsh tone, a cruel tone that sounded like a man by the name of Gendo Ikari. Shinji ran a hand through his hair as he pulled out the bag of rice, scooping enough rice for two people, and Asuka because he knew she'd want some, along with some for Ryouji in case he was jealous of his elder sister.

Asuka didn't seem to notice Shinji's stress. "Yeah, well, I guess you're right. Still, I'm not sure how happy I'd be if my stepmom started to act like she really cared if I was getting married or not."

"She cares," Yumi declared, balling up her fists passionately, "Mothers always care about stuff like that!"

Frowning slightly, Asuka replied, "I don't know about that."

"Besides, what's a stepmom?" Ryouji asked.

Asuka was about to answer when Yumi interrupted her. "Don't you know anything? A stepmommy is a mommy you have after your real mommy goes away! A girl in my class has a stepmommy."

"You mean mommy's going to leave me?" Ryouji stammered, tears in his eyes.

Neither Shinji or Asuka responded.

"Of course she isn't, silly!" Yumi replied, reproachfully, "Mommy isn't going anywhere. It's just what happens if you get a divorce, that's all. And your mommy doesn't leave you, really. She just lives somewhere else. My friend at school sees her mommy all the time—"

"Can we please change the subject?"

Shinji glanced over at his fiancé to see a sight he had never, in all his years, expected to see out of the blue like this. Asuka's head was slumped over, her face almost completely covered by the shadows of her bangs. A small moist gasp for air escaped her throat as a small, beady tear rolled down the strong German's cheek. Shinji could only stare in shock as she brushed the tear aside with her knuckle, only for a second tear to replace the first. What was wrong with her? Just talking about mothers brought her to tears? Just what the hell happened to Asuka's mother? Was she involved in a bitter divorce? Was her mother arrested for drug abuse? Did she die? The truth was that Asuka had never, in all the years she knew her, mentioned the status of her real mother. Occasionally, and by occasionally she meant rarely, she'd mention her family in Germany, but never would she mention her real mother.

Except for the immediate aftermath of Third Impact.

He approached his fiancé, and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She glanced up. Her sky blue eyes were filled with tears she struggled to hold back, her stiff upper lip struggling against quivering sobs. Her face was contorted as it fought the war against crying, against showing her true feelings. As Shinji bent down to embrace her, the proud German continued to resist the tears. Even as she buried her face into spot between his shoulder and chest, she chose to whip the tears that had yet to fall against Shinji's shirt rather than let them slip down her face.

"You stupid idiot," Asuka mumbled, her words interrupted for a brief second by an uncontrolled sob, a sob she struggled to quench.

"Aunt Asuka? Are you okay?" Yumi asked, concerned. She put a back on her "aunt's" back. Ryouji too took a closer look, a glint of fear in his eyes for her safety. Slowly, she rose out from her position, with muted sobs.

"I'm fine," Asuka replied, running a hand through her hair, glancing at them all, "Let's just not talk about that kind of stuff, okay? It just isn't something I really enjoy talking about."

"Am I in trouble?" Yumi asked, a terrified glint in her eye.

"No, you're not in trouble."

"Are you going to tell my mommy?" Yumi asked, even more concerned.

"I don't think I will," Asuka replied, grimacing in amusement, "Well, actually, I might, but just so she'd talk to you privately about it, maybe."

"Okay," Yumi replied, resigning to her fate.

After finishing the Weiner Schnitzel, Shinji prepared the rice balls that Yumi had so desperately begged for, and that Shinji so desperately craved. Asuka was playing her games once more with Ryouji, and Yumi was rummaging through her backpack for something that Shinji could not see. As he set out the rice balls on the table, announcing their completion, she watched as Yumi pulled out a large sketchbook, an object she gazed upon with a look of sheer pride. She approached Asuka, and tapped her on the shoulder. This surprised her, which gave Ryouji a perfect opportunity to deliver a fatal blow to her character, leaving her open to a humiliating stage Fatality. Her eyes widened in horror as she watched her character fly through the air, fall through space, and land with a sickening splatter against a carpet of iron spikes. With a look of sheer mortification and fury, she rounded on Yumi. "What is it?!" she snapped, as though she had just caught Yumi stealing something precious away from her.

Yumi, who looked as though Asuka was about to bludgeon her with a battle axe, and in all honesty it looked like Asuka would have found that to be a rather suiting punishment for distracting her, extended the notebook to the German and cried, frightened, "I'm sorry! I just wanted to show you something to make up for before! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

"Stop saying you're sorry."

"Yes, sorr—er—"

"You take after that idiot, don't you?" Asuka asked, gesturing over to Shinji, who stared at Asuka with a look of confusion. She just had to drag him into this, didn't he? Drag him into a conversation that didn't involve him. Well, despite that, the little girl was clearly amused by Asuka calling Shinji an idiot. Her expression calming, perhaps after rationalizing that loosing to a little child at a fighting game once wasn't the end of the world nor should it be, she accepted the notebook, and glanced at the first page. "Wow, this is actually pretty good for a seven year old. Did you draw this?"

"Uh-huh," Yumi said, proudly.

As Asuka flipped through the pages, she continued, "I mean, no stick figures, just real looking people. When I was your age, I—I—" Asuka's eyes widened slowly as she stared at one individual page, her mouth contorting as she struggled to find words to describe what she was trying to say. Yumi glanced at her, relatively confused. She probably wasn't sure whether Asuka being speechless was a good or bad omen. She glanced over Asuka's shoulder to see the picture in question, only to smile.

"Oh! I really like that picture."

Shinji wanted to inch nearer, but she was sure Asuka would explain it later. He finished the rice balls as Asuka asked, in a strained tone, "How did you, uh, draw this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did you copy from a picture?"

"Oh! No! Nothing like that! I met someone who looked like that, and I thought she was really cool looking, so I sketched her. I asked her to pose and everything."

"Asked her to pose?"

"Uh-huh."

"Are you lying to me?"

"Why would I be lying to you?" Yumi's expression grew tense, as though she were afraid of Asuka yelling at her once more. "It's just another person. I asked her to do a few drawings for me, too. No, wait, that's not what I meant. I meant to say I drew her a few other times, I mean. Sorry if I wasn't clear."

Glancing over at Shinji, Asuka snapped, "Dummkopf! Get over here!"

"What?"

"You heard me! Look at this drawing!"

Shinji darted over, mildly happy that the rice balls were at the very least finished. She wondered what could possible surprise Asuka this much. It took a lot to startle his fiancé. Judging by the comments she made, he doubted the German was stunned by the artistic ability of this special younger. In fact, he felt it was something much more, something important, that would startle him upon looking at the picture.

It didn't take long to see what Asuka was so shocked about.

"Is that who I think it is?" Shinji stammered, his eyes wide in horror.

"I can't believe this," Asuka stammered, "Maybe it's a look alike."

"It's gotta be. Hey, Yumi, what was the name of this girl?"

Smiling brightly, Yumi replied, "She said her name was Rei. Rei Ayanami."


	6. Chapter 6

**Part 6**

"I want to see the remains of Rei Ayanami."

"What? Right now?"

"Yes!"

Asuka was still trembling, her balled up fists squeezed, her nails almost piercing her soft palm. She couldn't believe it. That little kid, Yumi, Misato's daughter, had drawn a picture of Rei Ayanami! That stupid doll! That bitch! Asuka couldn't deny that one of the things she was mildly happy about when she returned to the real world was that living doll no longer existed. Her remains, the monstrous mutilated pieces of her that drifted in the sea of LCL, had been collected by NERV and deposited in a deep underground vault. By now, information regarding Rei Ayanami had become public to NERV personal only thanks to Misato's investigation and Fuyutsuki's revelations. Asuka couldn't deny that most of the information regarding the blue haired witch didn't surprise her.

"Why do you want to?" Fuyutsuki asked, mildly irritated. Asuka handed over Yumi's notebook to the Commander, a grim expression on her face. "What's this? A kid's sketchbook?" The book was opened to the drawing of Rei Ayanami, at which he shook his head. "Could just be coincidence."

"She specifically said she drew someone she had seen on the street. AND she referred to her as Rei Ayanami. What more evidence do you need?" Asuka snapped.

"Who drew this?"

"Misato's daughter."

"Oh, well, maybe she saw a picture or heard her mother mention her name," Fuyutsuki replied.

"That's what I asked. She said she didn't copy a picture, and Misato would never mention Rei around her daughter."

"How do you know that?"

"Well, who'd want to?" Asuka asked.

Fuyutsuki grimaced in submission. "You really despised that girl, didn't you? Rei, I mean."

"Yes," Asuka replied, not giving further explanation, not remembering how that girl had received so much attention from her superiors despite being the weakest of the pilots, not remembering how that blue haired bitch had stolen Shinji's attention, not remembering just how that bitch reminded her of dolls.

A noose hanging from the rafters.

"Something wrong?" Fuyutsuki asked, curiously.

"It's nothing," Asuka replied, shaking her head, "I still have to have access to Rei's body! I want to see it, now."

"Fine, if you insist that badly, I'll give you temporary clearance. Just don't touch anything."

#

"The pot's boiling over," Toji called over to his wife, staring at the oven in mild fear as he hastily chopped vegetables.

"Can you get it, please?" Hikari called from another room, "I'm kinda busy here."

"I don't know—"

"I'll handle it," Shinji replied, rising to take care of the pots of food on the oven.

"Aw, thanks a lot," Toji replied, a smile of relief on his face.

"Don't worry." Shinji enjoyed cooking by this point. He did it all the time for Asuka, so by now, he was used to preparing food. In fact, he had grown to enjoy it rather much. He didn't know why, but the idea that he was creating something with his own hands, blending tastes, playing God over the dishes of food, and, in the end, seeing other people smile because of him. It sent a wave of pride throughout his body, as though he was doing something right.

"So how's the pregnant devil?" Toji asked, curiously, from his chopping.

"Eh, she's fine," Shinji replied, "She's just looking at something right now, over at NERV."

"What's that?" Toji asked.

"Not sure," Shinji lied.

"Oh, okay," Toji replied.

"Toji, could you get me diapers?" Hikari called out.

"Uh, okay!" Toji sprinted to a cabinet full of diapers, grabbed one, and muttered, as he ran off, in a rather hasty mantra, "Please don't let me change her diapers, please don't let me change her diapers, please don't let me change her diapers…" After a few moments, he returned, an expression of relief on his face.

"I guess you didn't change the diapers?" Shinji asked, tending to the rest of the food on the oven.

"Very funny." Returning to his chopping, Toji asked, mildly, "So is your future wife having cravings yet?"

"Cravings?" Shinji asked.

"Yeah, you know, cravings. For food, you know," Toji asked.

"Not that I can think of," Shinji replied, thinking of the wide variety of food he served at home.

"Hikari had to have lots of beets when she was pregnant," Toji replied, "I don't know why beets, but she just needed them. Knowing Asuka, she'll probably be craving some random German food."

"Well, it's a good thing she's been teaching me how to cook that sort of stuff," Shinji replied.

"Really?"

"Yeah, she even taught me a bit of German," Shinji replied.

"Did she charge you money for lessons?"

"No, she just wanted help learning how to read and write kanji."

"You mean she can't read kanji? How long has she been in this country now?"

"German's her native language, and that's VERY different from Japanese," Shinji replied, "I barely know German, just a few words." Shinji was being humble here and defending his fiancé; he had picked up German pretty easily; it was Asuka who had extreme difficulty with Japanese.

"Oh, okay, that's fine," Toji replied, "I know a bit of English only because I've gone on business trips to America, but that's it."

"Toji!"

"Yeah?"

"Can you make sure Shinji doesn't come into the parlor?"

"Why's that?"

"I'm breast feeding and I don't want him to see."

Shinji imagined, for a brief moment, Hikari placing her dear son's lips to her plumped bosom. The gentle sounds of sucking, the gentle rocking back and forth, a rhythmic pattern that almost made Shinji—

"You're thinking dirty thoughts about Hikari, aren't you?" Toji asked, through narrowed eyes, "Stop it. Now."

#

There her body was, resting in an artificial lake of LCL. Bobbing back and forth, clearly dead, her vacant unseeing eye staring directly at Asuka. She was dead, long dead. This gigantic, titanic entity, kept in a massive vault underground at NERV, was all that remained of her. She was dead! There was no way Yumi could've possibly seen that doll alive. There just wasn't any way.

"Satisfied?" Asuka turned to see Misato Katsuragi behind her, a small smile on her lips.

"How did you—"

"Fuyutsuki told me all about it," Misato replied, "Yumi has quite an imagination, huh?"

"Are you hiding anything from me?" Asuka asked, inquisitively.

"Hiding? Why would I do that?" Misato replied, surprised.

"Seriously, are you? I can keep a secret, I just need to know if that doll is out there."

"Doll?" Misato laughed, "So that's what this is all about."

Asuka's face contorted in rage. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It all makes sense now. Rei reminded you of your mother's—"

"Shut up!" Asuka snapped, clamping her hands over her ears as she turned away. The damage was done, though. In her mind's eye, clear as day, she could see it, a body hanging from the rafters by a noose, a doll swinging back and forth at its side. Upon opening her eyes, she could see a planet sized doll staring back at her, a crooked grin on its face, laughing at her even in death. She wanted to throw something at that bitch, that dead looking face that sneered at her, but couldn't. She couldn't damage that piece of carrion, or Fuyutsuki would flip out.

"I'm sorry," Misato replied, frowning, "Have you told Shinji about that?"

"No," Asuka replied after a moment of silence.

"I think you should. It'll help get a lot off your chest," Misato replied.

"I'm fine. I'll handle it on my own."

"Shinji shared everything from his past with you, right? Shouldn't you do the same?"

Sighing, the German replied, running a hand through her hair, "He has enough to worry about. I wouldn't want to pile another burden on him. I already ask him to make me food and clean the house. If I were to ask him to help carry all my problems on his back, I think I'd be asking too much of him. The least I can do is carry his burdens and mine. That way, we're even."

"But I think he'd want to carry your burdens. It would be his way of saying things are okay," Misato replied.

"I don't want him to, so shut up about it, already!"

"Alright, I understand," Misato replied, "Oh, and by the way, regarding Yumi and the whole thing with your mother, I took care of it, like you asked."

"What did you say?" Asuka asked.

"That your mother was dead and it was a touchy subject for you."

"Did you say anything else?"

"Not at all."

"Thanks."

#

"I'm home," Shinji replied, ignoring the fact that the house was silent and the lights were off. He walked in, removing his shoes only to walk over to the stove. He was about to set a pot to boil when he heard it: a phone ringing. He glanced at it, curiously. Was it Toji? Had he left something there by accident? Or maybe it was Asuka, telling him something about Rei that she had discovered. He approached the phone, nonchalantly, and answered it. "Hello?"

"Hallo? Wer ist dieses?"

"Huh?" Shinji stammered, surprised to hear an unfamiliar female voice on the other side of the phone, "Excuse me?"

"Ist Asuka dort?"

"Uh, Asuka?" Shinji tried to remember some of the German he had learned from his fiancé, and decided to speak. "Uh, she's not home right now. Who is this?"

"This is her sister."

"Wait, sister?!" Shinji stammered, "She has a sister?"

"Yes, she does. Who're you, exactly?"

"I'm Shinji, her fiancé," he said, on instinct. It was only after the words came out of her mouth that he realized what he had just said, and how Asuka's sister wouldn't know that they were engaged.

There was a moment of silence before the voice on the other line asked, curiously, "Verlobtes?"

"Uh, yeah, uh…"

"When did this happen!?"

"A month or two ago."

"And she didn't tell us?"

"Uh, I thought she did."

There was a period of silence again before Asuka's sister snapped, "So when are you going to come to Germany."

"Germany!?"

"Who're you talking to?" a familiar voice behind him asked in a cold, dark tone.

"Oh, uh, hi Asuka. You wouldn't believe who just called just now…"


	7. Chapter 7

**Part 7**

"SHINJI, YOU IDIOT!!!!!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't realize—"

"You idiot! Don't talk, just stay quiet!" Asuka snapped, pacing back and forth, her hands balled up in fists as she glared venomously at her fiancé. It wasn't that she was really made at him, but it was a hell of a lot easier to shout at him than it was to shout at her sister over in Germany for calling her like that. Asuka was about to call her, too, once she found out what was up with Yumi drawing Ayanami. Still, the revelation that her sister had called while her back was turned was enough to make her forget momentarily about Wonder Girl. "You shouldn't have said you were my fiancé!"

"Why not?" Shinji asked.

"Because now I'm going to have to go back to Germany and drag you along with me," Asuka snapped.

"But I thought you felt Germany was the greatest nation in the world," Shinji replied, his eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, well, it is, but I hate having to see my parents!" The sounds of her father and stepmother making love echoed through her head, a sound superimposed to the memories of her mother in her hospital ward, stroking the doll she believed to be her daughter. She shook the memories out of her head before continuing her point. "They just bother me, alright?"

"Okay, fine, but you were going to have to tell them eventually," Shinji replied.

"Not necessarily," she replied.

"Were you just going to run away?"

"Don't throw that rhetoric at me, you stupid house broken male!" Asuka snapped, pointing at her fiancé with a look of utter disdain. Sure, his frail backbone was holding firm for this instance, but it wasn't enough to persuade Asuka that she was being unreasonable. He didn't know her family, nor did he know just why she wanted to avoid them like the plague. Then again, it wasn't his place to know. She had just wanted to keep him away from that side of her, and yet it had come to drag Shinji deeper into her tangled web of suffering. Sighing for a moment, inhaling in an attempt to calm herself, she said, her face beet red, "We need to figure out how we can do this."

"When are we going over there, again?"

#

"When was the last time you came over here?"

"Too long, Kate," Asuka had said in a falsely sweet sounding voice, speaking real, fluent German for the first time in months. She was surprised to hear a slight Japanese accent in her tone. She had been away from her motherland for too long, and yet, at the same time, was hesitant to go back there for years in fear she'd have to speak to her parents again.

"Well, I hear you have a fiancé," her sister Kate had replied in an inquisitive tone. Her sister wasn't like Asuka. As opposed to her, Kate lacked the fourth of Japanese blood her mother had given her. All she had was the Langley blood, but not the Sohryu blood. That's what made her different, made her an alien.

"Yeah, I've been meaning to tell you, but things have been so hectic I completely forgot," Asuka replied.

"I can imagine, what with wedding plans and all that. So who is the lucky man. Shinji? Isn't that the name of the Third Child?"

"Yes."

"Wow, I thought you said that guy was an idiot!"

"Well, he is. A complete and utter idiot, housebroken, stupid, and just—just—"

"Aw, it sounds adorable!" Kate had squealed. Asuka had cringed at the sound of her voice. She resented everything about that girl. It wasn't her fault she was her stepmother's daughter, but that didn't mean she'd just accept Kate with open arms or anything. "So when's the wedding?"

"What?"

"The wedding. When is it?"

"Oh, that. Well, we're planning on having it in a few months."

"When are you guys planning on having a baby?"

"A little under nine months."

She did despise slips of the tongue.

"What was that?"

"Nothing! Nothing at all," Asuka replied, frantically, "I didn't say anything!"

"Did you say nine months?"

There was no point now. She might as well just bite the bullet. Resenting her sister's inquisitive nature with a wave of fury, damning Shinji for getting her into this situation, she said, in an uncharacteristically high voice, "Uh, well, I said less than nine months."

"What? Tell me everything. Now."

"Well, you know, stuff happened, and, uh, Kate! Stop giggling!" she snapped, her face filling with a radiant scarlet glow.

"I can't help it! It's just too rich! You a mother!"

"Oh shut up!"

"So when're you coming over to introduce your fiancé?"

Asuka had sighed, shaking her head. She had ran a hand through her hair, wondering when a good time would be. She wouldn't have minded coming over on February 30th, or maybe the day after the End of Time. However, she couldn't just say that to her sister. She glanced over at Shinji, considering for a moment to ask him for advice, only to turn away, harshly. That bastard was the reason she was put into this situation; the last thing she wanted was to hear his voice right now. "I don't know. What time's good for you?"

"Hang on a sec. Mom wants to talk to you." Asuka had cringed yet again. Just what she needed, her damn stepmother on the line. Clenching her fists into tight little balls, she had waited until that little brat deposited the phone in her mother's hands, only to count the seconds until that dreaded voice rang through the phone.

"Hello, dear?" At the sound of that voice, the woman had become a girl once more, a girl running through German air, running toward a door beyond which remained a dead corpse hanging from the rafters. She had held the memories at bay as she had focused on the then and there, in Japan, in Tokyo-3, NOT in Germany.

"Hello, mother!" Asuka had called out in a forced cheery tone, "How are you?"

"What's this I hear about you getting married?"

She did indeed cut straight to the point. Recovering from her momentary stunned silence, she had replied, with a forced smile on her face and a force girlish laugh in her voice, "Aw, sorry I didn't tell you before. So much has happened lately I've just forgotten to tell you that sort of thing. I hope you can forgive me." Oh how she had just wanted to tell that stupid bitch that she had avoided calling her this whole time. Had it not been for that idiot picking up the phone, she'd still avoid communication with that woman. It wasn't like she was her real mother anyway.

"It's quite alright. I suppose I can forgive you, but next time, please tell your family about such major developments, alright?"

"Sure, okay."

"Such as you going about and making me a grandmother without ever informing me."

Asuka had wanted to shout out that her stepmother could rest assured that she wasn't the baby's grandfather and that Kyoko Sohryu was the legitimate grandmother, but, once again, she held that indignation inside of her chest as she had replied, in a sugary tone, "I'm sorry about that too!"

"So who is this man, anyway?"

"Oh, Shinji Ikari."

"Oh, you mean that pilot you worked with?"

"The same."

"We're all very proud of what you did as a child, you know. I think all of Germany would rejoice at your wedding." Truthfully, judging by how the NERV building was damaged in Japan, she seriously doubted that any nation would rejoice about the union of two small individuals. Clearly her stepmother was trying to play up her pride, an aspect of herself that had deflated gradually over the years. Regardless, it did boost her spirits up slightly, if only for a moment.

"Oh, I doubt that," Asuka had replied, honestly, "Anyway, it's been great talking to you, but I'm going to have to—"

"When will you be coming over to introduce us to the Third Child?"

The moment she had hoped to avoid. "Oh, uh, I don't know, I have a lot of work to do, so I don't know when I'll be able to get over there."

"You can arrange something with your superiors, I'm sure. I'm sure they let people off for brief vacations and maternity leave and the like."

This was very true. They did let Misato off TWICE for maternity leave, AND took several vacations to spend time with her children, and she had a higher position than either of them did. Fuyutsuki would have no problem giving them time off to visit Germany, much to her dismay. "I'll need to ask." No doubt she'd forget to ask Fuyutsuki and end up replying to her mother that her boss was a jerk that refused to let her take time off. That sounded like a good alibi, until her stepmother spoke.

"Don't worry. I'll just have your father make a call for you."

Damn it! That bitch thought of everything, didn't she? "What? Oh, I don't think you'd need to go to all that trouble!"

"Oh, no trouble at all! He was going to need to have a telephone conference with your Commander Fuyutsuki regardless in order to settle an affair regarding a German railway system. I'm sure if he asked your boss he'd be delighted to help."

"Oh, really, you don't need to go to that much trouble—"

"No trouble at all! Shall I request that you're available for, say, two weeks from today so you'd be able to get your affairs in order?"

"Oh, that should be fine," Asuka resigned.

"Good. I'll see you in a bit, then. Gute Nacht!"

#

"Two weeks, huh?" Shinji replied, in stunned silence, "That's a little quick."

"She'll hold us to it, you know. There's no way I can avoid it," Asuka sighed in resignation.

"It can't be that bad, can it?" Shinji replied, "I mean, you knew this was going to happen sooner or later, so you might as well go ahead and reach out for it." Shinji had never heard the German mention much about her family, so this reaction she had didn't exactly surprise her. The sister hadn't sounded mean on the phone, and the conversation she had with her mother—er, stepmother—didn't sound too unpleasant, so why was it so difficult for her to actually muster the courage to see them? It just didn't add up. Maybe it had something to do with her birthmother.

"What do you think I should do now?" Asuka asked Shinji in a desperate tone.

#

"What do you think I should do now?" Asuka had cried out as fists had beat against the door of the NERV building.

"I don't know! Grab something! Anything! Barricade the door!" Shinji had shrieked, grabbing every sort of reinforcement he could grab his hands on as he jammed it against the locked door, be it metal bars, pieces of wood, or even dead bodies that had begun to pile up along the ground, the dead bodies riddled with bullets, bodies of comrades who they had allied themselves with along their escape from the concentration camp. It was at moments that these that he was glad that their now dead comrades had the foresight, and the bravery, to sacrifice their lives in order to disable their weapons.

Shinji glanced over his shoulder, seeing bloody masses of bodies, some still alive, most dying, many younger than he was. Their wide, terrified eyes staring at the banging beyond the door, a pulsating rhythmic slamming that was almost in synch with Shinji's own heartbeat, powerfully beating against the interior of his ribcage as he reinforced the door, praying that they'd live, praying that he'd be able to build up the walls between him and the enemy long enough for them to escape.

Was this any different from the battles against the Angels? Was it? They were relentless, maybe even worse, maybe just as dangerous. He needed to face his fears and save himself. Otherwise, what did he really learn after all that horror three years earlier in Third Impact?

And over his gasping for air, his terrified attempts to live, he could hear the once proud German whispering to herself, in terrified, harsh tones: "I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die."

They weren't going to die.

Not like this.

They were closed off in a tiny little room, filthy, bloodstained, and defenseless. There was no hope for survival if those doors gave. They had to make sure it was impossible for the enemy to get in, for those monsters to penetrate their sanctuary. The militia was just a new government that had hoped to regain power in the collapsed regime. Like most of the horrible, destructive groups, it had united under a relatively peaceful philosophy: eliminating evil. A good idea in theory, except the leader, a Jewish zealot, had a deep seated grudge against the Germans because of the Holocaust. Once again, in and of itself, not a terrible opinion. The Nazis had done horrible things to the Jews. However, like all believes, no matter how pure, when pushed to its extreme, it became rotten. The zealot had decided that all Germans were secretly Nazis, and that, in order to avoid a second Holocaust of Jews, he needed to create a Holocaust of Germans. They created dozens of concentration camps just like the Nazis had, all for the same intention: tormenting and killing their enemies.

Shinji became involved when Asuka had been captured, and he along with her for being a "German lover."

They had been sent out by the then unofficial NERV to help with the peace effort, and now they were dragged into a damn war! He just wanted the banging to stop. He wished his mother was there, that Ayanami was there, to save them, to maybe salvage them from the wreckage. But he couldn't wish for miracles now. He had received his fair share of miracles already. There was no time for praying; the time to act was nigh.

And then he heard it: gunshots. Gunshot after gunshot echoed through the air, and the sounds of bodies hitting the floor rang even through the thick defenses. Regardless of the gunfire and screams of zealots, Shinji didn't dare lower his guard. There was always a chance the conflict outside would be resolved. He knew the zealots couldn't be the ones shooting, as they didn't have anymore firearms to use. Surely it was a rival militia, perhaps worse than the last. He wouldn't give in now. Maybe, with a bit of lucky, they'd leave the facility alone and let them make a safe escape. Just maybe the zealots would forget about the escapees and let them return to Tokyo-3 safely. Even though it wasn't stable yet, it was a hell of a lot better than Europe right now! Even America would be safe, but Europe was a hell hole at the present time that no one should have the misfortune to dwell in.

And then there was silence. For a moment, Shinji didn't breathe. For five moments, there was silence. And, after the sixth moment, Shinji drew breath. Turning to his comrades, he said, in a harsh tone, "I think we made it."

#

"When was the last time you were even in Germany?" Shinji asked, curiously.

"Well, in the Concentration Camp," Asuka replied.

"Yeah, but that militia is gone now, so I know that's not what's bothering you," Shinji replied.

"Yeah, because crazy people trying to kill me is something you just forget after a few days."

"Asuka."

"Alright, I just don't want to see my parents. Is that so horrible? You didn't want to see your father after all!"

Once again, the image of himself in the future dominating his child like his own father had dominated him flashed in Shinji's mind. He suppressed the image, only to focus on his fiancé once more, a slightly anxious expression on her face. "What's wrong? You can talk to me about it if it really bothers you."

"It's nothing."

"No it's not."

"Really, don't worry about—"

"Here you are just running away from your problems again. I thought you outgrew that, you idiot."

Frowning again, Shinji replied, distantly, "I'm just afraid I'll end up being just as good of a father as mine was."

"How so?"

"Well, I know I won't be nearly as bad of a dad as he was, I just can't shake the feeling that I'll somehow hurt my child, or maybe he'll hurt me alternatively because I'm afraid of hurting him. I don't know what to think, but I'm just afraid something bad will happen because I wouldn't know what to do."

The redhead examined him with a raised eyebrow before drawing nearer. She lazily flicked him in the forehead, at which she snapped, "Dummkopf! You're stupider than I thought if that's what you're worried about being like that idiot."

"How is it stupid? It's a very legitimate fear!"

"Well, tell me this: are you going to emotionally abandon your kid?"

"No."

"Are you going to make him pilot a gigantic robot?"

"I don't think so."

"Are you going to focus on a creepy blue haired girl more than him?"

"Not likely."

"Then you'll be fine. What're you worried about?" Asuka replied, sitting back on her bed, exhaling slowly as she muttered to herself, "But my mother, on the other hand…"

"What was that?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking about my mother—er, I mean, stepmother."

"Oh, okay," Shinji replied, convinced, "I'm guessing you don't get along with her?"

"Yeah, I suppose."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Shinji asked.

Smiling slyly, Asuka replied, "Dummkopf! If I started telling you everything wrong with me, then I'd really realize I'm in a pathetic state."

"So I can tell you things, but not the other way around?"

"Basically. Now go to bed. We have two weeks before we go to Hell."


	8. Chapter 8

**Part 8**

"Attention passengers, we will be landing in Germany in approximately 10 minutes. Thank you for flying—"

"Thank God we're here! My butt is so damn sore!" Asuka groaned, pushing herself up as she massaged her rear end.

"I don't think you should be getting up right now," Shinji replied, glancing over at his fiancé with a mildly concerned expression.

"And why not, you id—" The airplane their were currently inside tossed slightly, knocking Asuka back onto her seat. After the momentary expression of shock faded away, she stammered, struggling to revive her self-importance, "Oh, if you didn't catch me off guard like that, I wouldn't have fallen like that! You idiot!"

Frowning, Shinji glanced up at his redhead fiancé. There was a note of anxiety in her eyes, a note of terror that Shinji couldn't explain. Sure, the memories of their last visit to Germany was bad, but surely, SURELY, that couldn't be the only reason Asuka didn't want to go to Germany, to return to her parents. Surely there was something else, surely some other motivation holding her back, another memory, one that she refused to let him know.

Why wasn't she letting him in? He let her in all the time, but now when something was personal for her, she refused to let him know anything. She had been acting agitated all day, shouting at him the entire way up to the airplane.

#

"What are you? Stupid!? You need to get your passport!" Asuka had snapped at him, in a frustrated tone.

"Hang on! I'm just getting it out," Shinji had replied as the workers at the airport waited patiently for him to withdraw the document from his pant's pocket.

"Oh sure! Take your time, why don't you?" Asuka had groaned, shaking her head and tapping her feet in frustration, "You're taking too long! We're going to miss the plane if you take this up!"

"Miss, you have another hour before your plane starts according to your ticket, so I think you can rest assured you'll arrive on time," the worker had said in an attempt to pacify the German.

"Oh, shut up! What do you know?!"

"I work here."

"I have the passport! Here you are," Shinji said, handing the pass to the workers.

"Oh sure, took you long enough! Dummkopf! What were you doing that whole time? Playing with yourself?"

"Ma'am, that's uncalled for language," one of the coworkers had stammered, shocked by what she was saying.

"Oh shut up! Let's go, you stupid—"

"I'm sorry ma'am, but you forgot to show us any identification."

"Scheiße! Bumsen Sie Sie und Ihren Paß!"

After flashing her passport hastily, Shinji had turned to the rest of the workers, and had mumbled, anxiously, "Uh, we're going to see her parents."

#

And so, as the plane landed on German turf, Shinji watched Asuka rise from her seat, stretching her back as she snapped, "God damn air planes! These rides are too damn long. Why can't we just get Supersonic jets to bring us here?"

"It's probably unhealthy for the baby," Shinji replied.

"Oh, of course, Shinji here is a real protégée when it comes to babies! I don't see you getting pregnant!" Asuka snapped, placing a hand gingerly on the small bump on her torso, a slight convex bubble of life that was currently visible to the human eye. It wasn't large, and, to some, it might just look that Asuka had just put on a little bit of weight. And indeed, she had put on weight aside from the baby. Her arms and thighs had grown slightly thicker, though not enough to look even remotely overweight. It was just a little bit of fat, which was of course expected to form when a woman was pregnant.

As the couple walked, Shinji noticed, from the corner of his eyes, his fiancé stumble over a rather obviously placed cart. As she swore on the top of her lungs in German, Shinji wondered just why she hadn't noticed that thing there before. It wasn't out of sight or anything; it was right there. It was almost like walking headlong into a table or a wall. "Damn it," Asuka snapped, "Stupid toes! I knew I shouldn't of warn sandals to this stupid crapshoot of a country!"

"Uh, Asuka, you need to relax a little—"

"You shut up!"

"Yes ma'am!"

After reaching the lobby of the airport, they found several people chattering in German. The cacophony was so disorienting that Shinji that he couldn't spot out the man holding a sign with their names on it a mere twenty feet away. His fiancé, irate and frustrated, grabbed him by the wrist, and pulled him toward the man standing their with that sign, clearly longing to be somewhere else, far away.

"Dummkopf! What are you, stupid? Can't even see the sign when it's right in front of your eyes. You idiot!"

"I'm sor—hey!"

"Stupid idiot! Moron! Ugh!"

The couple arrived at the side of the German with the sign, who spoke rapidly in harsh, frustrated German. Shinji could pick up on what he was saying rather easily. "How long do you expect me to wait, anyway? Thank God you're here."

"I'm sorry," Shinji stammered, in broken German, only for Asuka to shoot him a dirty look. She was training him against saying "sorry" all the time.

Turning to the man, Asuka said, in a snappy tone, "Look, it's your job to hold the sign, right?"

"Right."

"So why're you complaining? You'll be paid overtime for your services, be able to buy your girlfriend a nice dress, whatever she wants. If you don't have a girl, then you'll just buy one. Knowing someone like you, that's probably the only way you'd get one with you people skills." The man struggled not to yell back as his lips twitched painfully. Shinji gave him credit for strength of will. "Good, now take us to the Langley Estate. Now."

"Estate?" Shinji asked, "Are you rich or something?"

"Not specifically."

"Then why call it an es—"

"Right this way," the man groaned.

The ride from the airport was relatively long. In fact, Shinji wondered why they couldn't have arrived in an airport at least slightly closer to their destination. The forty-five minute drive was insanely long, especially with Asuka grumpily complaining about everything they saw as they passed by the industrialized cities. "They've cut down all those trees? That's just stupid! I remember there being a forest here, with huge trees! I mean, I remember climbing them and hanging on the branches as a kid. Why did they cut them down? Probably to make way for some stupid freeway or city skyscraper! Those stupid idiots! It's the same in Japan, though, those crazy Japanese stupid—" Shinji sort of just found her complaining to be just white noise after awhile, especially with the driver's radio blasting in the background and planes soaring overhead, cars honking and trucks mowing along, animals crying and humans laughing on the outside.

After an eternity, the car pulled up to a massive driveway that lead up to what looked like a rather large estate, as Asuka had implied. Chances are the house was supplied to the Langley's from the government as a reward for raising a pilot who had fought hard to resist Instrumentality and the Angels. From what Shinji knew, Germany had held the pilots in high esteem. The NERV branch in Germany often received awards, as Fuyutsuki observed constantly. He seemed to envy their success.

"Well, here we are," the driver said, a note of relief in his voice as he turned around to the couple. "I'll go get your backs."

"Thank you very much," Shinji replied, waiting for Asuka to say something in response. However, by the time the man left the vehicle, she was still silent. Shinji turned toward his fiancé, and saw her staring out the window at the large building that was her home. It was a true mansion, with turrets and everything, beautiful brick walls constructing the elaborate building, gargoyles and other beautiful ornaments resting on the peeks of the several pointed roofs, decorating the stunning faces of the building. And yet the German didn't seem to notice this at all.

Why was Asuka white in the face?

Why was she trembling?

Why was she so cold?

Shinji extended his hand, and pulled the redhead's into his, a concerned expression on his face. It had been years since she had last returned here. The post-Third Impact genocides and wars that broke out here had to be the least of the reasons for her not returning. Something else, something horrible, had happened here, something that happened in the house they were currently parked in front of. The German turned to make eye contact for a moment, a desperate look of longing in her eyes, unable to hide the desire for the Japanese boy to hug her, to hold her close, to tell he everything was going to be better. However, that sense of longing was soon swallowed up in a frustrated scowl, yet her narrowed eyes were unable to hide that melancholy gaze, the longing to be told she didn't need to leave the sanctuary of the vehicle, that she could just remain here for an eternity, away from the unknown fears of the house.

"What're you doing?" she spat, in a venomous tone, "Dummkopf! Stop looking at me like that!"

"Are you alright?"

"Alright? What's wrong with you? Why would it look like I'm not alright, anyway?"

"Well—"

"Are you two going to get out of the car yet?!"

Asuka scowled at the driver, who was currently holding Asuka's entire cornucopia of bags on his back, and holding onto Shinji's single suitcase in his hand. "Jesus! Can't you be a little patient?"

"Patient? Lady, you're impossible!"

Shinji exited the car, holding the door open for her fiancé to follow. Any ordinary human would probably just leave the hotheaded redhead to her own devices, not really caring if she left the car at all, maybe hoping she didn't. For better or worse, Shinji wasn't an ordinary human being. He could see the pain the German was struggling to conceal. He knew her long enough to know that she was at her bitchiest when she was stressed out. Clearly something was stressing her out to near the breaking point. He knew better than to get in her way, but he also knew that it was best to be as nice as possible to the redhead, to treat her like a Princess in order to remind her that someone did care for her.

Usually that worked.

He hoped it would now.

Asuka hopped out of the vehicle, her gaze averted from all. She brushed a hand over her forehead, as though she were wiping sweat away. However, seeing as how it was reaching the month of December, and seeing as how Third Impact hard returned the Earth to its pre-Second Impact climate conditions, it was certainly rather chilly outside. However, only Shinji, standing beside the girl, could see the redhead's thumb brush against the corners of her eyes ever so slightly, so that the chauffeur behind them would be unable to see her brush aside the tears she cried.

Shinji reached out for his fiancé, putting a hand on her shoulder, a reassuring hand that he hoped would relay the message to her, through her layers of pride and fuming frustration, that he was here for her. For a moment, all was still, much to the chauffeur's shock. However, after five seconds, the German girl brushed his hand aside, and mumbled, "I'm fine. Don't worry about me, you stupid idiot." With that, she took several steps closer to the house, her head lowered in resignation.

"She's your fiancé, right?" the chauffeur mumbled behind Shinji.

"Yeah, she is."

"Uh-huh. If you don't mind me saying so, she's a complete bitch, but she has one sexy ass."

Shinji didn't need to defend his fiancé; she happened to turn around on the spot and throw a rock at him. It missed, but the man got the hint rather quickly, and shut his mouth.

"Stupid idiots! I just hate stupid men!"

The trio, the chauffeur trailing behind with the added weight on his back, ascended a large stairway leading up to a pair of large oak doors. This was the threshold of the Langley estate, and now his fiancé was about to reunite with her parents for the first time in perhaps a decade; maybe more. Surely there was only one possible outcome for all this: a lot of problems.

Asuka wrapped her knuckles against the door, and Shinji held his breath, waiting for the moment where all hell would break lose. Finally, however, the door opened, and, to Shinji's mild surprise, a 14 year old emerged from the depths of the house. The lithe child there before them had long strawberry blonde hair that trailed over her back in the form of two pigtails. Her sky blue eyes gazed up into Asuka's own eyes of the same color, and the two stared at one another for a few moments. Finally, the younger girl smiled. "Sis?"

"Kate? That you?" Asuka asked, nonchalantly in a surprisingly comfortable tone, "You've grown."

"Uh-huh, and not just my height. My figure's spilled out as well, you know," Kate replied.

"Yup, that's her sister," Shinji mumbled, positive that Asuka had said something similar to that when he had first met her.

At the sound of Shinji's voice, Kat took a few steps forward, gazing at her future brother-in-law, examining him through narrowed eyes before mumbling, in a lackluster tone, "That's him? The Third Child? He's kinda plain lookin', don't ya think?"

"Kate, please, remember that appearances aren't everything when it comes to true romance." At once, Shinji noticed, from the corner of his eye, Asuka jump suddenly and sharply, as though ice had been applied to the back of her neck. She gazed at the woman standing in the doorway, and, as her eyes grew wide, Shinji followed their trail to the woman standing there before them. She was an icy looking blonde, her hair all wrapped up into an elaborate high bun. Her pale skin complemented her green eyes, which was in stark contrast to her daughter's eyes or her step-daughter's. She looked older, like in her late forties or early fifties, and yet was rather beautiful in her aged state. Shinji was sure she was quite a looker even ten years prior, maybe a rival to Asuka. That being said, there was a chill about the woman he just couldn't place, but he knew he didn't like it.

Asuka, however, looked like she was beaming. "Hello, mother!"

"My dear step-daughter, I haven't seen you in ages." The mother approached her stepdaughter, and pulled her into a deep embrace. The German girl returned the favor, but only after a second passed after the gesture had been initiated. The hug, though, was surprisingly brief, and the two woman began laughing amongst themselves. "I see you've grown out your hair, and your body has grown into that of an eloquent young lady."

"Lady? I don't know if I'm that great. I'd figure I'm still a girl physically."

"You look like a woman ready to be married. And this is my future son-in-law, correct?" Shinji hated when adults used the word "correct" when they could just use "right." "Correct" reminded him of his father.

"Yeah, that's right," Shinji said, putting a surprising emphasis on the "right."

"Well, I'm glad my daughter chose to marry such an important individual such as yourself," Asuka's stepmother said, a smile on her face, "I always knew she was destined for greatness, but to see her now to wed another one of this planet's saviors, I justfeel faint thinking of it. You must tell us everything over dinner tonight. Mr. Langley, as it were, is currently out on business, but should return tomorrow."

"Oh, that's fine. Don't worry," Asuka replied, smiling, "Might be good for some catching up, right?"

"Correct," Asuka's stepmother replied, "By the way, Shinji, was it?"

"That's right."

"Well, I would just like to know that if there is anything, and I mean anything, we can do to make your stay at our cozy little estate all the more enjoyable, please, do not hesitate to let us know."

"Alright, I won't," Shinji replied, not trusting that woman for more than a second.

"Hey, lady, where do you want me to dump your crap?" the chauffeur mumbled under the weight of the bags.

Asuka glanced over at him, nonchalantly. "Oh, you? Dump them in wherever I'm staying. Uh, where is that again?"

"Third floor, first room on the right after you walk up the stairs," the stepmother replied, nonchalantly to the chauffeur.

"Thanks a lot," the man, clearly happy to drop the load off, darted toward the doorway.

"Do you need any help?" Shinji asked the man, but his voice was drowned out by Asuka's voice.

"Hey guys, can we go get some water please? We're kinda parched," Asuka shouted, overwhelming Shinj's statement so the chauffeur couldn't hear him, couldn't hear his possible means from leaving he alone with her parents, Shinji assumed.

"Certainly. Kate will guide you there herself, won't you, Kate?"

"Of course! Right this way."

"Thanks a lot! Shinji, come with me!" Asuka grabbed Shinji by the wrist and, against his will, dragged him away from the spot, along with her, ensuring that, no matter where she went, he wasn't going anywhere more than five feet away from her in this house.

This was going to be one long visit, wasn't it?


	9. Chapter 9

**Part 9**

Why the hell was she in Germany, anyway? It wasn't like she actually liked this part of Europe or anything. If anything, she all but hated this place and the memories stored here. She would've enjoyed burning the nation to the ground, if it burned down the memories of that little room and that bed and that damn stinking doll! Asuka stared out her window while that stupid idiot Shinji behind her snoozed on a pink mattress intended for the redhead. He could take the damn bed for all she cared. It wasn't like she even liked pink anyway.

She clenched her fists, angrily, as she pounded the wall. That idiot couldn't stay awake until the damn sun set, could he? He had to be an unsightly loaf on a bed, unable to stand by her side, protect her from awkward conversations, salvage her from the past and all of its horrors. The damn asshole! He was such a jerk for being so inconsiderate! What a jerk! How much she wanted to just punch a hole through him!

She punched the wall again. Oh, who was she trying to fool? It wasn't that idiot she was mad at. She gave him credit for being able to endure two hours of her dragging him into every room she went to without complaining, even the bathroom, just to make sure that he'd be the main subject of conversation, so she wouldn't be alone with her family. She supposed it was inevitable that this would happen. All great things needed to end eventually, didn't they?

"Hey, sis."

All good things came to an end.

"Yeah?" Asuka turned to face her younger sister Kate, who was staring at her elder sister with a look of indifference.

"Mom wanted me to ask you if you could come down for a second."

"Not a problem," sighed the redhead, frowning to herself as she gazed out the window for a moment longer. There was no point running away. She needed to face it. Right now, or never at all.

The two sisters left Shinji asleep on the bed, snoring slightly. As they reached the flight of the stairs, Kate turned around to her sister, pressing her hand against the elder sister's belly. "Say, sis, I think I feel a kick," Kate replied, giggling.

"It isn't that developed yet. Give it a few months," the redhead sighed, frowning to herself as she asked, slowly, "What did mom want me for, exactly?"

Kate shrugged. "Not sure, you know?"

"Oh, okay." That didn't sit well with Asuka. The subject matter of their conversation could be one of many topics. For one, it could be about Shinji, which would be perfectly fine. On the other hand, it could be about the baby, which would be a little more awkward. And on the other hand, it could be about her real mother, which, if that were so, she doubted she'd be able to finish a coherent thought.

Her mother was standing in the living room with an old taped up box. It was covered in dust, filled with artifacts that Asuka hadn't seen in years. The icy woman glanced over at the German redhead with a small smile on her lips. "Ah, dearie, I had been meaning to ship this to you, but felt this required the more personal touch. This is a lot of stuff I've been meaning to give you from our house. Lots of old stuff that you'd be able to maybe give to your baby."

"Oh, so it's mostly baby toys?" Asuka asked.

"Mostly."

The redhead approached the array of dust covered toys, glancing at each one with relative indifference. Sure, some of it would be rather nice to give to her daughter—er—child, but a lot of it was rather old. An old plastic doll house sported a rather large crack running down the side. It more resembled the House of Usher than a child's toy, thanks to the thick layers of filth and ash that ensnared the plaything. One tea cup had been crushed under the weight of a plastic toy that was so damaged it was almost impossible to determine just what it had been in its former glory.

"It's a lot of junk, my dear, but I'm sure some stuff will prove quite useful," her mother replied, hesitantly.

"It's a box of crap. I don't remember any of these things," Asuka replied, in a false-sugary tone. After all, she needed to keep up appearances, didn't she? She needed to at least pretend she was happy. If she wasn't pretending, her stepmom would ask why she wasn't happy, and then she'd be forced to listen to a story about her real mother. All at once, she remembered a doll, hanging from a nose, a nightmarish dead, ghoulish body hanging in the air next to it, and the doll her stepmother had given her years ago. She could remember it so well, remember ripping the damn thing to shreds. It was almost as though that bitch was rubbing it in that her real mother was a lunatic.

As she returned to the land of the living, she noticed a small amount of fuzzy white cotton stuck to her fingers. As she pulled it away, Kate leaned in closer, curiously. "Hey, what's that on your hands?"

"Not sure," Asuka muttered in response as she removed the last of the cotton, "Looks like cotton, or stuffing."

"Stuffing?"

"Yeah, like the stuffing you'd have in a stuffed toy or a—a—" She couldn't say it. If she said that word, the word that began with a "D," then she'd give it strength, she'd make it real, she'd make the pain emerge yet again, pain strong enough to burn her heart and soul, her moral and strength, her resolve and composition, to the ground in a pile of ashes.

Her mother glanced at the box, and leaned in toward the box. She reached out for it, groping toward it. "Maybe you can look at the rest later, or—" Asuka grabbed the woman by the wrist, holding her back, holding her arm still, holding her away, holding the nightmarish memories close. Slowly, Asuka released her stepmother, leaving her hands at bay. The redhead turned to the box. She reached inside, tossing toys aside, throwing houses and tea sets aside as she found more stuffing, more of that cotton, stuck to the toys. Finally, at the very bottom of the bin, she saw it.

A small doll, ripped down the middle.

The first gift she had received from her stepmother.

The last doll she had touched following the death of her mother.

She trembled as she stared at it, reaching out for it with shaky hands. Slowly, her fingers wrapped around the object, her eyes transfixed into its beady black set. She couldn't believe it. How was this possible? It just couldn't be true. Why would this doll be here? Why would it be here? She glanced at her stepmother, her eyes pleading for an explanation for why this doll had to be in a box filled with toys and goodies from the past, why the horrible memories of the past had to be at the bottom of pleasant memories.

"I don't follow what's happening," Kate mumbled, "It looks like an ugly doll, though."

Very slowly, Asuka pulled the doll closer to her chest, holding it to her heart, keeping the memories as close to her as possible. She didn't care what anyone said. She didn't care what anyone said. All that did matter was that she needed this doll. She glanced over at her mother, slowly, as she said, "Can you put all that back in the box please?"

"Oh, uh, certainly," her stepmother replied, "Kate, put this stuff back inside, will you?"

"What? Why do I have to—?"

"Asuka?"

The redhead glanced up at the stairs behind her. There that big idiot Shinji stood, a confused and dopey expression on his face. He was so stupid, standing there, so moronic, so damn annoying. What was he doing there, just staring at her as she held a doll to her chest. What was he doing, anyway? Judging her? Judging what she was doing like some sort of stupid superior judge of some kind. He wasn't perfect. He had problems. She didn't deserve to have that idiot just stare at her like that, like some stupid idiot.

"You dummkopf!" Asuka cried out as the idiot embraced her, his arms comforting her like a warm, soothing blanket, enveloping her in warmth as she cooed to herself, almost silently, but enough to relieve the pressure building in her chest, the pressure to cry out in joy that she had been saved.

"I'll go get dinner ready, won't I?" her stepmother mumbled, leaving the room in favor of finishing things at the kitchen.

"I don't get it. What's the big deal about a doll?" Kate asked.

"A doll? Is that what set you off?" asked Shinji, curiously.

"Yeah, but don't worry. I'm fine," Asuka replied, nonchalantly rubbing her eyes, "It's not like it's a problem or anything."

"Did it remind you of something?" Shinji asked.

"No! Not at all! Just—"

"Just what?"

"Stop interrupting! Dummkopf!" She couldn't tell him the truth. She couldn't explain what she really felt, what she had gone through so many years ago when she had first ripped the doll into pieces. "Look, can you do me a favor and put this in my bags?"

"Oh, okay."

About fifteen minutes later, dinner was served. It was a rather simple meal, with lots of steamed meats and vegetables. She did love the taste, despite the fact that she had to admit to herself Shinji's food was much better. Still, that didn't mean she had to give that idiot another reason to inflate his broken ego. "I missed this great food. You don't get this sort of stuff in Japan. It's all fish and rice there, but this, oh this is just so filling! I mean, you wouldn't believe how much that idiot makes, but it isn't satisfying at all. It leaves you wanting more."

"Thanks so much for being supportive," mumbled Shinji.

"I'm glad you approve," her stepmother replied, nodding in approval, "Still, we have much to discuss, Asuka."

"Like what?"

"Well, we need to discuss wedding arrangements, where it's going to take place, and, perhaps most import of all, the baby."

"How did you guys ask each other out?" Kate asked, anxiously, staring at the two of them.

"A little random," Asuka mumbled.

"Oh, what?" stammered the surprised Shinji, "How I asked her out?"

#

"If you want, you can take her home with you now. Her condition has stabilized in the past week or so."

"Thank you so much," Shinji had said, bowing respectfully as the red haired German girl was escorted out of her room, a grim expression on her face. She had been inducted in the asylum for several months now, ever since society had completed its reconstruction. He could only smile now, seeing the German salvaged from her self-imposed shackles. She had driven herself mad, and now she was reaping the benefits of her perseverance.

She was so beautiful, like an Angel.

Well, not that kind.

"I can walk on my own," Asuka had grumbled toward the nurses assisting her as she had shaken out of their grip. It had been at this moment that Shinji new Asuka had, beyond a shadow of a doubt, recovered. He had been worried, after all. It had been a few months since he watched her thrown into this place for her own safety. She had just snapped so horribly after all she had seen. Shinji couldn't blame her. She had been confronted with so much, forced to endure so much, and she didn't have the liberty of being able to override her pride in order to confide her concerns in someone else.

"Nice to see you're alright," Shinji had said, hoping to break the silence as he drove her home.

"Alright?" Asuka had laughed, but it was a vacant laugh without any true passion to it, "I guess that's one way of putting it."

Shinji hadn't know exactly how to respond to that one. Such a difficult comment, so cold and indifferent. Casually, he switched tactics. Anything to get her talking. "Where should I drop you off?"

"Home."

"Where's home?" Shinji had asked, hoping to prolong discussion.

"That apartment we shared, remember? You still own it, right?" Asuka had replied.

"Well, yeah. I've been practicing cello constantly while you were gone. I think I've really improved. You gotta hear—"

"Did you learn how to play Moonlight Sonata on your cello?"

Shinji considered this. No, he hadn't. He knew exactly what song it was, and maybe he'd be able to try adapting it to work for the cello, but there was one major problem with Moonlight Sonata. "Well, that's usually a piano piece."

"Oh. I tried to learn it for my violin. If you want, we could do a duet," Asuka had replied, her voice flat and empty.

"Something the matter?"

Asuka was silent.

"Did something happen at the asylum?"

Asuka was silent.

"Can you at least talk to me about it?"

Asuka was silent.

"Could you at least—"

"They played Moonlight Sonata over and over again at that asylum," Asuka replied, flatly, "They played it again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. It's enough to drive someone mad."

"Oh, uh, well, it's a nice song, you know?"

"You know when the played that song, usually this one guy would scream. He must've hated that song, being exposed to it so long. The people there got used to it, but he couldn't. He couldn't adjust. I used to tell him to shut up at first, but then I got to understand why he was in such pain. He hurt that way because he was sick of that song being forced on him. All he needed was someone else."

"I'm not sure I follow—"

"But he had no one else. No one listened to him because no one understood him, and no one understood him because no one was listening to him, and no one was listening to him because no one—"

"Calm down." Shinji put a hand on the redhead's shoulder, frowning gently as he gazed over at her, a serious expression on his face. "I'm here. I'm listening to you."

"Please don't leave me," she whispered as she held herself in her own arms. "Please don't abandon me. Please don't kill me."

Shinji glanced at her, and said, softly, "Okay, I'll never leave you, okay?"

#

"Oh, Shinji was being really pathetic and whiney, so I decided to ask him on a date to make him feel better," Asuka grumbled.

"That's not it at all," Shinji grumbled silently.

"Oh, so what was your story, huh?" Asuka snapped, a sarcastic grin on her lips.

"Well—"

"What names are you considering for the baby?" Asuka's stepmother asked, curiously.

"We haven't really—"

"Rei if it's a girl," Shinji replied.

"Wait, what?" Asuka stammered, "There is no way, and I mean no way at all, that we're naming my daughter Rei!"

"And why not?" Shinji asked, "Rei was such an important part of our lives when we were kids."

"Well, let's go down the list, shall we? Number one, she's a damn doll. Number two, she's a clone of your mom. Number three, she's a damn doll!"

"You said that twice."

"Just to reinforce my point!"

"What if it's a boy?" Kate asked.

"It's not going to be a—"

"Kaworu."

"Shinji, shut it!"


	10. Chapter 10

**Part 10**

The day that Mr. Langley returned home was surprisingly a rather simple and natural moment in Shinji's life. He had never met his fiancé's father before this moment, so when he just popped up outside the house, asking his wife for entrance, it seemed as though Shinji's concerns preceding his inevitable arrival had all been for naught. He had feared that Mr. Langley was a rather intimidating figure, like his own father. Asuka had never mentioned her father before, or at least explicitly, so he just naturally assumed he had been as much as a crappy father as his own.

Upon arrival, Mr. Langley approached his wife, and kissed her directly on the lips. Asuka frowned slightly as at this, but as her father parted from his second wife, Asuka's step mother, he turned to his daughter, and approached her, an apparently warm expression on his face. "Hello there, totcher. It's been far too long since the last time you've graced us with a visit."

"Hello, dad," Asuka replied. Shinji couldn't help but find it weird how she addressed this man as "dad." It almost sounded alien coming from her lips. It was, in fact, a little strange, and he had a hard time adjusting to the sound of her saying such words. It was even more startling when she pulled her father into a hug, resting her cheeks against his broad chest.

Her father patted his daughter's shoulders, smiling slightly. "Listen, daughter, we have much to discuss while you're here."

Asuka parted, slowly. She glanced over at Shinji, and, for an instant, Shinji could see the hints of infinite pain, infinite grief, infinite heartbreak, exposed for only a moment in her pupils. But, then again, maybe it had been a trick of the light, as, after blinking only once, this infinite abyss of emotion seemed to have vanished entirely, a curious glint emanating from her irises as she turned to her large, formidable father. "Oh? What exactly?" she asked, folding her hands behind her back, resting them just below her rear end.

"About your child, of course," Mr. Langley replied, smiling slightly.

Shinji didn't like that smile he wore.

He didn't know why; he just didn't.

"And this must be the famous Third Child," Mr. Langley replied, turning toward Shinji, who had been watching the entire exchange from behind Asuka.

"His name's Shinji," Asuka mumbled.

"Right! I apologize. He deserves to be called by his first name if you chose him to be your husband," Mr. Langley responded as he extended his hand to Shinji, "You must excuse me; I've heard so much about you from NERV's Germany branch that I feel a certain degree of respect already and we haven't even met yet. I must say, my daughter made a fine choice of a husband."

Shinji blushed slightly as he accepted Mr. Langley's hand, bashfully glancing at the ground, at his toes, away from this man's face. "Oh, really, I'm not that special—"

"You salvaged the world from Third Impact's annihilation. You know, some people regard you as a messiah! In Germany, we also remember your efforts to help salvage our nation in the early years of the reconstruction. We are, for all intents and purposes, indebted to you and Asuka's singular efforts. Without you, we wouldn't of returned from the horrors of—"

"Stop flattering him," Asuka replied, "It might go to his ego. He is a big idiot, you know. A dummkopf!"

"Eh, he is going to be the father of my grandkid, so I suppose I could at least compliment him a little bit before I interfere with how he's raised."

"I suppose," Shinji replied, blushing still, but still feeling uneasy about looking the man in the eye. He didn't know why he didn't feel comfortable. He usually wasn't this awkward with new people, especially considering his role as a diplomat of sorts for NERV. Still, something about this guy rubbed him the wrong way. He wasn't sure what it was, but it was enough to make him feel a little anxious just by holding his hand. He slowly released it, resisting the urge to wipe his hand against his pants, as Mr. Langley turned toward his daughter Kate, and greeted her accordingly.

As the young girl greeted her father with enthusiasm, perhaps with the intention of receiving admiration, Shinji made eye contact with Asuka. Silently, as though they were speaking with the spasms in their faces and the glints of their eyes, Shinji asked Asuka if there was a reason he felt so awkward around her father, as if there was an explanation for his skin crawling.

She replied with a yes.

They once again ate lunch after Mr. Langley's arrival, a rather unappetizing fried dish. Shinji longed to taste rice and fish once more. He hated the taste of this German food. He actually felt he could prepare it better, and even asked at dinner if, for dinner, he could prepare the meal. Mr. Langley laughed. "A husband who does the housework. My daughter did get lucky."

"What? You really don't expect me to cook, do you?" Asuka laughed, forcibly. It was a laugh that Asuka usually made whenever she was trying to resist the urge to slam her knuckles into someone's throat. Needless to say, she never laughed that way around Shinji; if she wanted to hit him, she had no damn problem doing so.

"I suppose not," Mr. Langley replied with a shrug.

"You never were much for domestic chores, Asuka," Mrs. Langley replied.

"Remember how when she was little, and we asked her to do the dishes, she'd just refuse?" Mr. Langley replied, "When you wanted to, you could be a most disobedient child."

"Dad, mom!" Asuka grumbled under her breath, her eyes furious and wide.

"Then there was that time you shattered all the plates in the house," Mrs. Langley replied.

"Oh, so that's who did it?" Kate asked, surprised.

"Mother—!"

"What is it, dear?" Asuka's stepmother asked, curiously.

"Can we please talk about something else?" Asuka snarled through her teeth.

"Oh, I see. You're embarrassed about that? Understandable," Mr. Langley said, nonchalantly, "I mean, you did go through a rough time back then."

"Rough time?" Shinji asked, confused. What was Mr. Langley talking about? Her mother's separation from her husband? Her death, perhaps? Shinji knew, after all, her mother had been separated from her father and eventually died, but was the separation from the husband death? Asuka had never told him much, but, judging from Asuka's wide eyed, scandalous expression, the memories surging through her head were so painful and dark she didn't want to recall them.

"You mean Asuka had never told you about Kyoto?" Mrs. Langley asked, surprised.

"Kyoto?" Kate asked, curious, "You mean Asuka's real mom?"

"Shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP!!!" The sound of the redhead's fist against the table silenced all four of them. They stared at her as she rose to her feet, trembling violently as she clenched her fists, her nails almost biting into her soft palms as she glared at her parents, her eyes wide, and yet maybe just a bit teary. "All of you, just shut up!"

"Asuka, what's wrong?" Shinji rose from his seat, and reached out for the redhead. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and was thanked for his chivalry with a punch to the jaw! The jab knocked him backward, not drawing blood, but leaving a large red welt. Asuka stared down at him with a look of fury. For an instant, it looked as though the fiery redhead wanted to stomp on him, beat him, kill him, but then realization dawned in her eyes that she had just hit Shinji. Her eyes widened for a moment before she turned on her feet, and sprinted up to her room. The sound of her door slamming filled the entire house, and reverberated in every hall.

There was a moment of silence.

"She's lost her mind, hasn't she?" Kate asked, simply.

Shinji turned to Asuka's family, stroking his chin. "Do you need some ice on that injury?" Mrs. Langley asked, rising from her seat, approaching the refrigerator hastily.

"No, I'm fine."

"I see. I suppose I'll leave you alone for now. Excuse me." Mrs. Langley left the room, leaving Shinji alone with Mr. Langley, and of course Kate, who hadn't seemed to realize that she was not welcomed in this conversation.

"I apologize for my daughter's behavior," Mr. Langley replied, "I hope you understand that—"

"What happened to her?" Shinji asked, simply.

"Well, she got angry and hit you," Mr. Langley replied, flatly.

"That's not what I meant."

"I thought so," Mr. Langley replied with a sigh, "You mean Kyoto, right?"

"Yeah."

"Alright. Kate, leave the room."

"What? But why?" the blonde pouted, her eyes wide and confused.

"Do as I say. Leave the room. This is a personal matter."

Fuming, the blonde rose from her seat, her arms folded over her chest, as she marched out of the room, up the stairs, only to slam the door to her own room shut. Loudly.

She was certainly Asuka's sister.

Mr. Langley ran his hand on the side of the table as he rose from his seat, walking toward the cabinets. He withdrew a bottle of imported vodka, and poured a small shot for himself. He offered some to Shinji, and he accepted a small puddle of the drink diluted with orange juice. As Mr. Langley took a strong sip from his glass, he said, slowly, "I feel awkward telling you this myself. I thought my daughter would've filled you in."

"Well, she didn't."

"I can see. Well, you see, Kyoto, my first wife, she was part of the first synchronization test involving Evangelion Unit-02. What unfortunately happened was, like with your mother, Yui, there was an accident. The Evangelion happened to swallow a large chunk of her soul into itself, and left Kyoto, how should we say, incomplete. The remains of her that were left in her human form were deeply depressed, and a little, no, very unstable. She ended up developing these psychotic delusions that this doll she had, this tiny raggy little thing, was actually her daughter, Asuka. Every day, she'd call the doll Asuka, refer to it as though it were her own daughter. And every day, our daughter would see her behave in such an odd way. I suppose, in retrospect, I was disturbed by the whole ordeal. I escaped through means that I can't deny I'm not very proud of right now. My daughter saw the worst of me, let's say, and that, piled with the horrible condition her mother was in, left my girl a wreck. It wasn't long after that she was selected to be a pilot. I was told she was extremely happy, and that she ran to see her mother. However, that was also the day her mother hung herself, but not before hanging the doll she believed to be Asuka herself."

Shinji stared at Mr. Langley as he swallowed his shot of vodka, quickly. Shinji's hands, however, were trembling too violently for him to even bring the glass to his lips, to even sip on its contents without sloshing it all over his face. All he could see was his fiancé, then a little girl, staring up at the rocking feet of her dead mother, a shadow against the light, creaking back and forth on the boards of the ceiling. What thoughts were going through her mind at the time? What could one possibly think? How could one think? Shinji struggled not to imagine the image of her staring, of her mind breaking to pieces in one swell swoop, her heart not being raped by the pains of horror no child should ever face, of her innocence and safety of mind being demolished in a heartbeat.

Shinji ran his hands through his hair, his shaky fingers sending tremors through the field of brown. Finally, he found his words. "Now everything makes sense."

"Hmmm?"

"The reason why she had been so afraid of coming back to Germany all these years. I thought all this time maybe it was because she didn't like you or maybe that she blamed you for her mother leaving her or dying or what have you, but now it all makes sense. She didn't come back for all this time because she didn't want to remember her mother. It all makes—and that's why she hated Rei, and when she called her a doll—oh God, it all makes sense! And when I suggested we called the baby Rei, she said twice that she wouldn't call it Rei because she was a doll. God, I was reminding her of—and then when—and—and—and—"

"Calm down, Shinji," Mr. Langley replied, putting a hand on Shinji's shoulder. All of a sudden, the man seemed to look a lot less intimidating. Shinji didn't mind looking this man in the eyes. He could see, in a second, that his eyes betrayed a hint of regret, a hint of self loathing, apparently hidden beneath the façade of relaxation. Shinji wondered, momentarily, what Mr. Langley had meant when he said that he had done some things he regretted. However, there wasn't enough time for that right now.

"I'd like to make some food for Asuka, but I'm going to need your help to get some of the supplies."

"Of course."

"I can cook good German food, but I think what she needs right now is to be reminded of Japan a bit. I need you to get—"

#

Shinji wrapped his knuckles against the door to Asuka's room. It had taken several hours preparing everything, but now the scents had filled the air, smells of Germanic and Japanese foods filled every puff of air in the building, the estate. Surely some had drifted into Asuka's room and was tantalizing her nostrils with beautiful scents. However, she needed a personal touch to rouse her from her self-isolation.

"Uh, Asuka? It's me, Shinji. Dinner's ready."

"I'm not hungry."

Shinji sighed. "I made something really good."

"I said I'm not hungry. Are you deft?"

"Listen, if you don't open this door up now, I'm going to knock it down."

"You couldn't even if you tried."

"You know what? You're probably right."

"Of course I am. I always am. Now shut up and leave me alone. I don't want you to see me like this."

"Listen, I don't care what you're like right now. I just want you to know that you can come down to eat it whenever you want. We've spent the last few hours making this, and I really hope you'd—"

"Why'd you waste your time?"

"Come again?"

"I hit you. I hurt you. Why are you doing something nice for someone who doesn't deserve your sympathy?"

Shinji laughed under his breath. "Do I really need a reason? I'm doing this because I love you."

Slowly, the door opened. Shinji backed away a few paces as Asuka's face became visible. Though her head was hanging low, though her bangs and locks of scarlet covered most of her face, the smeared lines of tears running down her soft cheeks was impossible to overlook. She brushed aside the trails of tears from her face with the back of her hand, clearly praying she had brushed them aside before Shinji could see her momentary weakness. "Dummkopf," she grumbled, leaving her room behind, staring at the ground as she did so, unwilling to meet Shinji's eyes.

"Hey, listen, Asuka—"

"What did that old bastard tell you?" Asuka hissed.

"What? You mean your father?"

"What did he say?" Asuka repeated, her voice low and dangerous.

There was no way of beating around the bush now. "He, uh, just told me about your—er—your mother and, well, what, uh, happened to, um, her."

Asuka leaned her weight against the framework of her bedroom door, her head slumped over. "Look, I don't want to talk about it right now, okay?"

"That's fine," Shinji replied, "We'll talk about it when you're ready. Alone. Okay?"

Asuka glanced up. Her eyes, despite having completed their sobbing long ago, were still filled with tears. They refused to fall, but rather stayed static in Asuka's eyes. "You stupid idiot! Dummkopf!"

"I know, I know," Shinji replied, pulling the German woman into a hug, gently stroking her sides and back. He felt slender arms wrap around his middle, pulling him tightly against his fiancé's breasts, her slightly cushioned body, as she nestled her hair against the underside of his jaw, becoming limp in his arms, yet refusing to release her lover, refusing to leave his side for this one moment.

The feeling would have lasted an eternity had the scents of delicious foods not wafted into Asuka's nostrils. "What's that?" she asked, perking up.

"I told you I cooked food for you. I thought you said you weren't hungry," Shinji replied, slyly.

"Oh, shut up! Dummkopf! I'm pregnant for God's sake! I'm not hungry, but she is." Asuka gestured toward her belly, which stuck out ever so slightly.

"You mean he."

"I mean she!"

"He."

"She!"

"He!"

"She!"

"He!"

"She!"

"You're arguing like an old married couple," Mr. Langley shouted from the kitchen.

"Shut up!" the two of them shouted, mutually at the man who had helped make the meal Shinji prepared possible.

Mr. Langley laughed. "How long must I wait here, anyway?"

"Oh, hang on a second!" Asuka snapped. She turned to Shinji, and smirked, slightly. "Guess we'll settle this debate another time."

"Alright, sounds good to me."

The two of them descended the stairway, and Shinji lead Asuka into the kitchen. For a moment, all she could do was stare at the feast presented before them, a series of dishes and plates of all sorts there before them. Hot, steamy rice was pilled up on a rather large, ornate bowl Shinji had found in the back of one of the cabinets (apparently, according to Mr. Langley, it had belonged to Asuka's mother, who was part Japanese herself), mounds of sausages that still sizzled in their serving plates, rows of teriyaki chicken and sushi, fish and miso soup, weinersnitzel and strudle, and other dishes that all looked delicious. The scents wafted through the air, like a cornucopia of deliciousness.

Asuka stared at the spread, speechless for a few moments, before replying, with a slight frown, "This is it?"

"Yeah, sorry," Shinji replied.

"I thought you'd do better, Shinji," Asuka replied, raising her nose to the air in disapproval, "I mean, really? The food looks undercooked."

"Asuka," Mrs. Langley mumbled under her breath as the redhead took her seat. Asuka reached out for her eating utensils, only to find, to the left of her plate, a spoon, to the right a fork and knife, and behind the plate a pair of chopsticks.

"Oh great! Now what do I eat with?" stammered Asuka, eventually choosing the chopsticks, "Only stupid Shinji the dork could make eating even more complicated than it has to be. Thanks a lot!"

"My pleasure," Shinji replied, grinning to himself.

After helping herself to a massive quantity of food, Asuka sampled each of the foods. She chewed slowly for each bite, as though she were savoring every taste that filled her mouth, dissolved slowly over her taste buds, filling her with a warmth unlike any other. She turned to Shinji, and said, in a high, critical tone, "This stuff tastes like dog food! I'm disappointed, Shinji! Really. It's so disgusting, I can't take another bite!" she added, right before shoving another piece of sausage straight into her open, welcoming jaws. "Unbelievable!"

"I suppose I've failed you, then," Shinji replied, with a sheepish grin.

"You can bet that much, idiot!" Asuka said before sipping down a spoonful of luscious miso soup, "Really, you need to learn how to cook better."

"I'll try."


	11. Chapter 11

**Part 11**

"Shinji! Can you get me some chocolate?"

"Chocolate?" The Japanese boy poked his head over from the kitchen to glance at his wife, who was flipping through channels in their familiar little apartment, nonchalantly. Her soft hands rested on her gentle belly, a convex curve now visible, her hands resting on where her now expanded uterus gurgled peacefully, where there was life inside his dear German wife.

Well, "dear" was a bit of an overstatement, and she had yet to truly become his wife.

"Yeah, chocolate, I really need some right now, so get it," Asuka mumbled, nonchalantly changing the channel from a mushy romantic movie to what looked like a morbid horror film involving blood soaring in all directions. This seemed to attract her interest, which mildly disturbed Shinji.

"You know, you won't be able to watch that once the baby's born," Shinji said, anxiously.

"Why not? And weren't you supposed to get me chocolate?"

"Do you really want him watching stuff where someone's eyeball is used as a projectile?" Shinji asked, disapprovingly.

"Chocolate?" Asuka reminded him, her voice dragged out for effect.

"Fine, I'll get it," Shinji resigned, glancing over at his wife as she glanced back down at her belly, prodding it gently with her fingers, rolling her shirt up to observe it. It was strange: Asuka was always such a slender, almost overly thin girl, but now with that belly of hers filled with their future child, she looked a little more radiant, perhaps complete. She had always been beautiful, but with that child inside of her, something seemed to invigorate her more.

Or perhaps what was giving her such energy was the end result of their trip in Germany.

The trip had ended rather anti-climactically considering the huge episode where Shinji learned of Kyoko's, Asuka's mother, fate. Things seemed to improve. It soon became apparent that the icy vibes Shinji felt coming from Mrs. Langley originated from a terrible first impression. She wasn't a saint, and she certainly was overly proper, but she wasn't an ice queen or a truly wicked stepmother of any sort. If anything, she was fairly friendly. The same was true for Mr. Langley, who seemed, in a subtle way, desperate to reconnect with his daughter, or at least that's what Shinji felt.

This vibe first came about with that whole dinner thing Shinji cooked up after Asuka snapped. Mr. Langley seemed so determined to help Shinji, so eager to cheer Asuka up, even though she had embarrassed him with her behavior. From that point on, for the rest of the visit, Shinji noticed Mr. Langley treating Asuka with more respect than usual. He would occasionally cook meals, which, Shinji learned from eavesdropping on Kate and Mrs. Langley, was an uncommon event. His food was good, though, if Shinji were to be so proud, not near the caliber of his own cooking. Additionally, Mr. Langley seemed to have a tendency to never say a bad word about his daughter, as though Asuka did nothing wrong, which Shinji could assure the public was not true.

Most important of all, he never mentioned Kyoko again.

Ever.

"Here's your chocolate," Shinji replied, handing Asuka a bar.

Asuka began to unwrap the bar, hastily, a ravenous hunger in her eyes. She shoved the chocolate into her welcoming mouth, and chomped on it, bit down and gnawed as every last crumb disappeared into her grinding jaws in a matter of seconds. Her cheeks were pregnant with the food, unbirthing it as it flowed down her throat, into her body, as opposed to the baby who she would eventually need to expel. Seeing how she ate that bar, it was no wonder she was starting to put on a bit of weight. Rationally, she needed to in order to give birth to a healthy baby boy—uh, baby—and she hadn't gained anything excessive yet, but judging by how her arms and thighs had grown plumper, and how her breasts had swelled slightly, to the point where her bra imprisoned the pillows of flesh within the tight bindings of fabric, to the point where her breasts had taken to rolling around the fabric, she certainly was at a healthy rate, on track. Still, it was impossible to deny she did look different.

But God knew if she didn't look like a Goddess now.

The phone rang.

"Hello?" Shinji asked, answering the phone, nonchalantly glancing at his fiancé as she longingly gazed at the wrapping, as though a second bar would magically replace the one she had just devoured.

"Hey, Shinji? It's me, Hikari."

"Oh, uh, do you want to speak to—"

"Who is it?" Asuka asked, glancing over, "Is it Hikari?"

Shinji was about to reply to his fiancé when Hikari hissed in his ear, anxiously, "No! Don't tell her it's me!"

Confused by the request, Shinji, rolling with the punches, replied, tactfully, "It's Fuyutsuki."

"Really?" Asuka asked, mildly surprised, "Why's he calling you?"

"Paper work," Shinji replied after a moment's thought.

"Sounds boring," Asuka mumbled as she returned to her violent show, deciding it might be better to play a few games. Once his fiancé became fully engrossed in whatever it was she was doing, Shinji let out a sigh of relief.

"Smooth recovery," Hikari said into his ear.

Shinji migrated to his own room, closing the door behind him as to block out some of the noise from unwanted ears. He whispered hastily into the phone, "So what's the matter? Is something wrong?"

"You know what tomorrow is, Shinji?"

"I'm not—"

"It's Asuka's birthday."

With getting engaged, having a baby, learning about Asuka's mother, and returning home from Germany, Shinji had all but forgotten his wife's date of birth. It was tomorrow, wasn't it? He felt awfully foolish for forgetting. Feeling himself scratch the back of his scalp, he nervously chuckled to Hikari. "You're right. Thank you for reminding me."

"Listen, I was planning on having a party for her, seeing as how this upcoming year is going to be big and all that, what with the baby and the marriage. Well, the point is I just want you to know if you could distract her for a little bit so we could all get to your apartment, and hide. In your apartment."

"Why my apartment? Isn't your place—"

"Would be too suspicious. If Asuka asked you to come here out of the blue, wouldn't you suspect something was up?"

Shinji had to admit Hikari's logic was sound. Awfully sound. "Okay, so what do you suggest I do?"

"Take her on a date, get her a present, do something she'd like, but make sure you leave the door unlocked, or tell me where you'll hide the keys."

"I'll drop off a pair in your mailbox tonight. I'll tell her Fuyutsuki told me to pick something up or something. Or maybe I'll go buy her chocolate."

"Chocolate as a birthday present? You know, Shinji, no offense, but that's kinda not enough—"

"No, that's not it: she's been craving chocolate."

"Oh, so she's getting closer to the Second Trimester, huh?" Those words sounded like Second Impact, or something of equal terror. "Look, don't forget to give us the keys. Also, buy some lotions to reduce stretch marks. It'll help her self-esteem afterwards. Helped me out a lot."

"What's a good brand?"

After Hikari informed her of the proper lotion brands to look for, Shinji hung up the line, frowning slightly. He glanced over at the other room, wondering if the red haired German girl had been eavesdropping or not. Slowly, he reentered the room, only to find his fiancé, to his relieve, ripping out the spinal column of her digitized opponent in her video game. As her avatar on the screen ripped her nemesis to shreds with a violent tearing motion, the German woman punched the air in triumph, cheering her own victory.

It was then that Shinji knew he had nothing to worry about.

The next day came, and Shinji rose from bed, his fiancé at his side, her hands wrapped around her pregnant belly protectively, as though her body was moving on autopilot even in sleep to protect her young. She really was a beautiful girl. He reached out tentatively with his hand, stroking her soft jawline, running his finger up her smooth skin into her locks of crimson, twirling the straight hair around his finger. She moaned slightly, only to turn over in her sleep, toward Shinji. Slowly, Shinji saw her beautiful sky blue eyes open, groggily glancing over at her fiancé, only to widen with shock.

"What the hell are you doing, staring at me like that?!" she snapped, rising up sharply to her feet, grabbing her pillow only to bash him on the head with it, "Dummkopf! Pervert! I just be you were feeling me up when I was asleep, huh? Huh!?" His response was muffled under the pillow that she had taken to smother him with. "Well, you know what? I guess I really can't blame your pervvy little mind to admire my beauty. After all, I am the most radiant, amazingly beautiful woman on the face of the—"

"I can't breathe."

"Oh, right," Asuka raised the pillow off of his head, allowing his fiancé a few seconds to catch his breath before pushing him off the bed. He tumbled to the ground, which wasn't too far of a fall, but regardless hurt when he slammed against the ground. "Hey, when you get up from there, can you get me some chocolate? I really need some right now."

Shinji was about to retort with some sort of argumentative response along the lines of "You just shoved me off your bed and expect me to be your servant!?" but then he remembered the date, the special occasion it was for this girl at this moment. With a small, resigning grin, he replied, softly, "Alright, guess the Birthday Girl deserves a treat."

"Wait, it's my birthday today?" Asuka replied, pausing for a moment.

"You mean you didn't even remember!?" stammered Shinji.

"Well, I guess with all that's been going on, I sorta didn't think about that."

After Shinji gave Asuka a box of chocolates he had picked up the night before, along with some lotion for her belly, (when he had given Toji and Hikari keys to their apartment), he watched in amusement, as a child tossing aside clothing Christmas morning in favor of toys, Asuka tossed aside her rubbing lotion, after acknowledging its uses with a rather disinterested expression, as she dove into the chocolate. With her cheeks full of chocolate, she turned to Shinji, a rather troubled expression on her face. "Hey, do you think I'm starting to look fat?"

"Fat?" Shinji glanced down at the redhead, who was resting her hands on her now bulging belly, a belly bulging with life, not with flab. She poked it, gently, feeling the soft flesh coating a protective sphere of life. "I don't think so. I wouldn't worry about it."

"You're such an idiot sometimes, you know that?" Asuka mumbled, glancing down at her chocolate as she inhaled the rest of it, "I mean, I'm gonna need to gain about 25 lbs from what I read in order to make the child healthy, right? I hear breast feeding kills a lot of calories, right?"

"I don't kn—"

"Ah well, at least the lotion will stop those stretch marks, right?"

"I suppose so." She looked miserable. Why was she so sad looking? Was it because of the bulge in her belly where their future son—er, child—was forming? Was it that she felt that bulge made her look ugly, made her look inferior? He sat down beside his wife, tentatively reaching out for her, only for the redhead to rise to her feet, staring down at him with disdain.

"What're you doing?" she asked, an amused yet sneering grin on her lips.

"Oh, uh—"

"You're trying to play the guy and make me feel all better, tell me eveyrthing's alright, that I look like some sort of angel or something with my fat belly—no, you wouldn't say that—pregnant belly and all that good stuff, right? Well, let me tell you something, Third—wow, haven't called you that in awhile—that's not going to work."

#

She stared at herself in the mirror. She looked mostly the same. Her arms were slightly fluffier, yes, filled with gentle fat, but it was nothing drastic. You really had to look to tell the differences, but, since the German was looking, every subtle change was obvious. Her knuckles and wrists were less noticeable than before, and now, when she stroked her arm, she felt her flesh give under the weight of each fingertip. She stared at herself, naked, as she stroked the moist water droplets off of her skin, the shower behind her now dripping drop after drop, each one rippling on the puddles slowly spiraling down the drain. She cupped her breasts in each hand, which were slightly larger than before, but still were dwarfed by the growth of her uterus, which her stomach had expanded in order to compensate with its growth. Of course, all that chocolate was having an effect too, wasn't it? She ran her hands over her belly, feeling soft flesh that gave under her fingers, just like her arms.

She shuddered to herself, aware of how her body was turning against her. Her face was mostly unchanged, but she knew that wouldn't last either. She cringed and trembled as she imagined what she would inevitably look like days before she expelled her daughter—er, child—or worse the days afterwards, where she was still bloated and chunky without the excuse of having a baby within her.

She clenched her jaw shut in frustration. Why the hell did she get pregnant in the first place? It was an accident, right? A complete mistake of circumstance. She hated the way she looked right now, hated everything about it. Why was she doing this, anyway? She didn't know anything about being a mother. She had, after all, lost hers at a young age. She tried remembering a time before her mother had lost her mind, before she had started babying a stuffed toy in the place of her.

One memory sprang to mind, albeit faded like a photograph retrieved from a fire.

She was a little girl, probably about four or three even, and she was huddling up with her mother, a small smile on her lips, a happy grin as she clung to her hand, her scarlet hair in stark contrast with her mother's flowing locks. Was it just her, or was her mother wearing her hair in a style similar to the style she wore hers now? Perhaps it was just imagination or embellishment. And she was smiling, smiling broadly, but her face was blocked out because of the sun radiating behind her, or perhaps that was an angelic halo? She wasn't sure. They were just walking, not doing anything, but she was there, with her.

Why was that the only good memory she had of her mother?

Why did it bring tears to her eyes?

Why was she crying?

#

Shinji was cradling a bag of clothing on his back, regretting the decision to take his fiancé to the mall in order to get her out of the house long enough for the others to infiltrate it and hide. He had received a message from Toji telling him that everyone was there, although how many people who were in on it remained to be seen. In fact, he didn't know anything about this ordeal other than what Hikari had told him over the phone. For all he knew, there could be a mob waiting in his house, waiting to overwhelm and kill him, take all his stuff, and force them to watch Barney.

It wasn't likely, but it was possible!

"It's only a little more until we get to the car," laughed Asuka, amused by Shinji's trembling knees under the weight of her fifteen bags of stuff, "Don't you love high paying jobs at a government facility? I guess that's a good use of the taxpayer's dollars: giving me clothing."

"We're living in an apartment. How high paying can these jobs possibly be?"

"Oh, stop pointing out the holes in my statement! Well then, shall we head home so I can try wearing all these sexy, beautiful, and oh so expensive birthday presents?"

To be fair, the majority of what they had bought was maternity clothing, and Shinji did admit the majority of them were rather beautiful. Still, Shinji imagined his fiancé changing in front of the massive quantity of people now lurking in their apartment, and a smile spread across his lips in amusement.

"What're you grinning about?" Asuka asked, frowning.

"Huh? Oh, nothing at all."

"Weird," Asuka mumbled as she unlocked the car, and hopped into the driver's seat.

"Hey, can you unlock the doors?" In response to Shinji's pleas, the trunk popped open, his amused fiancé gesturing toward the back. He hastily dumped all the loads into the back of the car, before waiting for the driver's seat to open up for him.

It didn't.

"Hey, can you let me in?" Shinji asked, his voice weary.

"Hop through the trunk," his fiancé said, clearly amused.

"What!?"

"Can't be too hard with your skinny body. I mean, you don't have a baby or something you need to protect. What if, by opening up your door, I somehow damage the baby?"

"C'mon! It's getting cold out here!"

"I'm sorry, it's not like it's my fault or anything. I just don't want to hurt the baby. I'm sure a strong man like yourself can just hop through the trunk to the front seat, after all," Asuka laughed, smiling that semi-cruel semi amused grin of hers.

"Fine," Shinji resigned, hurtling his body into the trunk, his fall cushioned by bags of clothing, before he managed to crawl into the back seat, pulling the trunk door closed with his foot. He rolled on the floor as he tumbled forward.

"You buckled up?"

"Does it look like I'm buckled up?"

After pulling himself into the front seat of his car, or the front passenger seat, and drawing the seatbelt across his chest, the car hurtled forward, back toward their familiar apartment. As they drove, the lights of the night spiraling past them like streaks of wind soaring beside them, Shinji turned toward his fiancé. Although she didn't look any less attractive than usual, there seemed to be something missing, a hollowness, perhaps, that detracted from her glory. He remembered that Hikari was practically glowing during her pregnancy, but Asuka seemed to be more like a black hole, absorbing the glow so that none of it shone from her cheeks.

"Hey, are you okay?" Shinji asked, glancing over at his bride-to-be.

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"I don't know, you just look a bit off is all."

"Off? How so?"

"I mean, just off. Like you're going to cry."

She laughed at that comment. "Me? Cry?"

"You've cried before," Shinji said, defensively.

"Yeah, but not that oft—I don't cry, alright?" she snapped, aggressively.

"Fine, okay, I'm just saying—"

"Just what?"

"Nothing."

Asuka frowned, slightly. "No, go ahead. What were you going to say?"

"I was going to say that you just looked really sad lately, you know? You looked as though you had something on your mind lately, and it's just kind of bothering you."

"Well, I have something in my uterus, does that count?"

"Is that's what's bothering you? The baby?"

"Well, yeah, I just think I look like a fatso is all. It's just normal girl stuff, so I wouldn't expect a guy like you to really be too concerned."

"But you're pregnant. You shouldn't be worried."

"Oh, it's not a big deal, like I said. Nothing I can't handle on my—"

"You're beautiful right now."

The red haired German stopped midsentence, and glanced over at her husband to be. Her cheeks were flushed with scarlet, and, had it not been for Shinji shouting at her to look back at the road as she almost drove straight into an oncoming bus, Asuka would've remained staring in awe at her husband for hours, her eyes trembling at that unsolicited, unnecessary, and yet welcomed comment. After a few seconds of returning to her senses, the redhead laughed, "That's what they all say."

Finally, they pulled up to their apartment complex. Shinji noticed, with a sinking expression, that, despite the fact that the guests had hidden in their room, they had made no effort to hide the multitude of cars now parked along the street. "Wow, someone must be having a party," Asuka murmured in acknowledgement as they parked in their ordinary spot.

"Yeah, someone must be having fun, right?" Shinji laughed, nervously.

The two exited the car, and, as Shinji withdrew the heaping piles of clothing from the trunk, Asuka glanced around, her eyes landing on one car only a few spots away from hers. Her eyebrow raised as she took a few steps closer, her puckered forehead sending a trembling shock up Shinji's spine. "Yeah, hey, wait, isn't that Hikari's—"

"Hey, Asuka, help me carry some of these bags, alright?" Shinji dumped some of the fifteen bags into Asuka's arms, knocking her off balance for a moment. She caught herself, but her view of the car was obscured.

"Hey! I asked you to carry them for me!"

"I know, but my arms are getting tired."

"You don't have the privilege of getting tired!" Asuka shouted back as Shinji darted up the stairs. The redhead followed the Japanese adult, albeit at a slower speed due to the mass in her belly. She seemed to have all but forgotten the car as they made their way, almost playfully, to their room. Shinji placed his keys in the lock, slowly unlocking the door as to give the guests inside warning that they had arrived. As Asuka reached the landing before the door, she mumbled, aggressively, "How long you gonna unlock the door?"

"Oh, just a minute," Shinji replied, shoving against the door as it hurtled open, the room dark and empty.

"Did we forget to turn on the lights when we left?" Asuka asked, surprised, "I thought I kept a lamp on or something." Asuka walked into the room, only for the lights to suddenly turn on, and they were greeted to a rather festive sight.


	12. Chapter 12

**Part 12**

"Mr. Shinji Ikari! Will Mr. Shinji Ikari please come to Commander Kozu Fuyutsuki's office?"

That familiar female voice rang through the loudspeaker of the building. He probably had called his office to no response a dozen times earlier to get this desperate to contact Shinji. However, it was rather difficult to answer the phone when one was ejecting explosive levels of diarrhea from one's anus. Shinji recalled last night with a rather irate expression as he felt helpless frustration at being unable to respond to Fuyutsuki's call.

Last night, Misato had dumped both of her kids on both him and his darling wife-to-be, Asuka. To say this was unexpected would be akin to claiming that Stalingrad was only a minor battle. Once again, thankfully, Ryouji had become a boy possessed by the urge to dominate and destroy Asuka in a fighting game of some sort, Shinji figured the newest Mortal Kombat seeing as how that was what his wife had spent the majority of the time playing recently. Unfortunately, however, Yumi wasn't so easily preoccupied with the game.

Rather, she was drawing.

While in and of itself this was an act of no real importance, and certainly one that wouldn't cause Shinji to release toxic brown sludge out of his ass, it was the content of the drawings that lead to both final situations. It was a certain blue haired girl: Rei Ayanami.

Just how the hell did this girl know about Rei Ayanami remained a mystery to Shinji to this very instant. How did Yumi know about a girl who had fallen to pieces years before she had even drawn her first breath? Out of all the individuals who had never returned from Instrumentality, Rei Ayanami was the one no one had ever spoken of in public, or had built a memorial of. Ryouji Kaji and Ritsuko had both memorials and portraits of all sorts positioned all around the NERV facilities, and Gendo Ikari's horrible form had been erected as a statue in front of the entranceway Shinji took every day to work, but Rei Ayanami's sole monument, the sole evidence she had even been alive at all, save for simple pictures and documentation, was her Earthly remains that had been contained several miles below the Earth.

Rei Ayanami was in pieces below the Earth.

How did Yumi know what she looked like?

Why was she drawing he so frequently?

"So, Yumi, drawing again?" Shinji asked, softly so he wouldn't draw his fiance's attention to the subject that disturbed her so terribly.

Yumi nodded at this, her eyes still focused behind her glasses in nigh-obsessive attention. "It's that girl I told you about last time, R—" Shinji clamped a hand on Yumi's soft mouth, strangling the words before they could be given life. Thankfully, Asuka was too busy dampening her character's fists in Ryouji's avatar's blood to even briefly notice the first letter of her hated rival's name.

"I know who you mean, yeah. So, uh, Yumi, did you see this girl again?"

"Yeah," Yumi replied, "Outside my house."

"Outside your—what was that!" Outside Misato Katsuragi—er—Hyuuga's house? How could a dead woman Misato had known for years possibly find herself in front of the house of one of the people this supposedly dead or alive girl knew growing up and dying in front of? Wasn't there security around the Hyuuga residence that would pick up the presence of a living dead girl like Rei Ayanami? Wasn't there some sort of scanner or tracker that would determine if an Angelic creature like Rei emerged nearby?

"Yeah, on the front step," Yumi replied, "Just standing there. Mommy didn't see her, though, 'cause she left before she came outside."

Misato didn't see? Surely security cameras caught something. Shinji knew that someone like Rei Ayanami couldn't just walk up, say hi, and leave without someone noticing her. Actually, that statement wasn't entirely true, now that he thought of it, considering just how spectral Rei was in life. But Yumi couldn't notice that Shinji was this anxious, oh no. "Oh, did she say anything to you?"

"She asked about someone named Pilot Sohryu. Do you know someone like that?"

THAT caught his fiancé's attention.

At that moment, the redhaired German rose to her feet, and turned around, curiously. It was as though, even after over a decade of disuse, that name still summoned feelings of the past from his wife-to-be, bringing the former ace pilot to her feet, just like that. "What're you two talking about, exactly?"

"Oh, uh, nothing at all!" Shinji replied, waving Yumi off before she could speak something that would compromise his cover-up. After all, he was doing this for Asuka's sake. He didn't want Asuka responding like last time by going all nuts searching for info on Rei Ayanami again. Surely his wife could forgive him for so clearly lying to her like this.

"No, really, I heard my name. I'm not stupid, like you, idiot."

Yumi jumped up at this, her eyes wide like balls. "You were a pilot? Of what, a plane?"

"Well, no, not really. Actually, I was the pilot of—"

"So who wants some German food?" It was the first thing Shinji could think of that would deviate the topic away from piloting, from Yumi's questions, from Rei Ayanami. As he hastily grabbed random ingredients together, along with a fryer, he noticed that Asuka was STILL explaining to Yumi the exact nature of who "Pilot Sohryu" was.

"Oh, yeah, I'll have some of whatever you make, just get me chocolate too. Anyway, back when I was younger, I—"

At that moment, the pots and pans Shinji had retrieved "slipped" from his fingers, slamming loudly onto the oven, sending a clatter through the air that obliterated the sounds that emerged from the redhead's mouth. The girl cringed, the soft flesh on her shoulders bunching up over her bra-straps, but Shinji didn't care. Anything to interrupt Asuka before Rei's story came to the forefront of the conversation.

"What the hell are you! Stupid!" Asuka snapped, turning on Shinji, "Those pots aren't cheap, ya know!"

"But you see no problem in spending dozens of hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a birthday cornucopia?"

"That's irrelevant!"

"You guys sure fight a lot," Yumi replied, smiling, her dimples almost begging Shinji to pinch her cherubic cheeks.

"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you're dealing with an idiot like him," Asuka replied, slumping back down by Ryouji, forgetting Yumi in order to pummel her brother.

Disaster averted, right?

As Shinji realized, as he sat on the can, an extra ingediant had been dropped in the pot when he slammed it against the oven, one that, upon being cooked, reacted poorly with his bowels. Asuka and the others simply said the food wasn't his best specimen, or, in Asuka's words, "I've tasted freaking dog vomit tastier than this slop! What? Was edible food too classy for tonight, dummkopf?"

After purging himself of the filthy sludge he had cooked the night before, Shinji left the bathroom, and made a mad dash for Fuyutsuki's room as they paged him a second time. Upon arriving in his office, pushing his door open as he stumbled in front of Fuyutsuki's desk in a clutter, the elderly man glanced at him, sighing in relief. "Good. For a second I thought you must've been out contemplating the meaning of life or something. What took you so long, Ikari?"

"I was, er, taking care of some business, sir."

"Was it so important that you couldn't just stop what you were doing and walk your way to my office, Ikari?"

"Trust me when I say that if I stopped midway and did a half-assed job, things could get a little messy in here."

"Ikari, I waddle through messes bigger than whatever you were dealing with on a daily basis, so that's no excuse."

"Okay, sir."

"And in any case, what I have to tell you is extremely important, so listen very careful to what I am about to say."

"Okay."

Fuyutsuki ran a hand up his wrinkled forehead, the lighting in the room making him look older than he truly was. Finally, he turned to Shinji, and withdrew a folder from his desk drawer. As he dropped the file on the surface of his desk, he began to speak. "Intelligence gathered questionable video content from the Hyuuga residence a few days ago, but it's only come to my attention recently due to rather sloppy middle management skills. Once Misato saw this, she felt you had the right to take a look at all this as well."

Even before Fuyutsuki opened the folder up, Shinji knew what he was about to see. He didn't need the page to turn to bare witness to a head of blue hair, scarlet eyes staring out at the camera, a school uniform composed of blue and white fabric that he had not seen in several yeas, and pale, empty skin pulled against nigh emotionless facial muscles.

Rei Ayanami.

Alive again.

"I don't know what this means, nor have I any way of knowing how to deal with this issue, but, Ikari, we just felt you should know. That's all."

"I understand, Commander. But, can you tell me what you think this means?"

Fuyutsuki sighed, running his hand through his hair yet again, pewter in color. "I have no idea. I really wish I had an answer to satisfy you, but I've got nothing. We checked the basement, and there's no sign that Rei's remains are any different, the bloodstains she left on the moon are still present, but I have nothing I can possibly tell you to explain why Rei Ayanami is in that picture. Not a damn thing."

"Does—"

"Your fiancé knows nothing. We all felt, considering their history and the great lengths she went to last time to prove to herself that there was nothing wrong, that for her peace of mind it was best not to tell her until we have sure proof evidence that this is indeed Rei. Then we'll tell her, seeing as how she is a high ranking member of NERV. Before that? Not necessary."

Shinji agreed. Was there any need to add stress on her shoulders what with the baby growing inside of her and everything? What could that sort of stress do to their son—er, child—and his—er, its—development? This was the right decision, certainly. But still, what was he going to tell his wife—er, fiancé? Nothing. That was what. Nothing at all. He'd say nothing.

After all, why say anything when nothing was wrong?

#

From the door of the store emerged the red-haired German, holding a bar of chocolate between her delicate fingers. She inhaled the chocolate as her craving desire consumed her. She really didn't like chocolate anyway on a regular basis. It wasn't that good, just okay. She preferred real food, and yet she longed for the soft surface of these brown milky bars. Was this what those cravings were? The food cravings she had heard so much of in her books that caused women to gain weight for their baby? What a filthy, rotten joke nature had dealt the usually svelte woman.

"Pregnancy sucks," Asuka mumbled as she finished the bar, tossing it aside before turning aside, running a hand through her scarlet locks.

Pigeons flew into the air, beating their wings against the crisp air as they surged toward the sky in mass. The young adult stared up at them in mild awe. Some small children birds were soaring next to their mothers, or at least that's what it looked like. It could well be that the children were really just runts that Darwinism had forgotten to dispose of, but she'd rather not think that way right then and there.

She glanced down as she started toward home. She glanced off to the side to see a young girl clinging to the hand of an older woman, whining about how the threads in her skirt had gone undone and how the older woman, not a tailor or a professional like that, was the sole person in the world who could salvage her article of clothing. As Asuka pressed on, she also noticed a young girl sobbing to herself as she looked around for her mother, tears running down her cherubic cheeks. After the mother-to-be passed the sobbing girl by, she heard the girl's real mother arrive, taking the young one into her arms.

Was that what a real mother was supposed to do?

Nurture?

Rescue?

Repair?

She didn't know how to do any of that.

As she walked down the remainder of the distance to her house, the German redhead noticed a schoolgirl standing nearby her apartment complex. She sighed, recognizing that blue and white uniform. Come to think of it, maybe Asuka could give her old uniform to her daughter—er, child. Surely she'd—er, it—would inherit Asuka's beautiful figure.

That girl looked familiar.

Maybe if Asuka would dig through her old stuff she'd find that old thing. She doubted it could fit her now with her future daughter—er, child—growing inside of her.

Her head was blocked out by that branch, but she could swear she looked familiar.

Maybe if she asked that stupid dork to look in her stuff for her. Digging around like she wanted to with a baby in her belly was one step short of insanity. Didn't want to hurt her future daughter—er, child—did she?

The girl was turning around now, and walking away.

Maybe—

Blue hair.

Red eyes.

All of a sudden, the German's thoughts froze in her brain as she stared out before her at the figure slowly walking away, clearly dissatisfied with whatever she was looking at. Step after step the woman took, her delicate smooth legs moving to the beat of the angels' wings, her locks of short cut hair at the edge of her harsh jaw line bouncing up and down with the beat of her movements.

That wasn't possible.

That doll was dead.

Rei was dead.

There she stood, no, walked, away from Asuka, and she could do nothing. All she could do was stare, her eyes wide in awe and terror, as the source of her fears and anxieties moved farther away from her, unaware that the red-haired demon who had abused her for so long was standing only ten meters away, no, twenty. She could do nothing to either run away from her or alert the doll to her presence. All she could do was stare, pick out each individual strand of hair on that girl's head as she walked, pick out every thread in her uniform as she swung her arms so briefly, see the outline of her rear-end on the skirt she wore, her rather slender and small rear. All she could see was Rei Ayanami's profile as she turned a corner, and disappeared entirely from view.

Rei Ayanami wasn't alive. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead.

"SHE'S DEAD!" Asuka screamed to herself, grabbing her hair tightly as she fell to her knees, staring down at the ground. She was alone in the street. No one saw her collapse, nor did anyone see her reaction. No, they couldn't have seen int. Surely not. They'd think she was crazy if they had. What if she was crazy? What if she was hysterical? What if—?

"Asuka?" Asuka turned at the sound of her name to see Hikari, standing there not five meters, no, ten, from her, pushing the baby carriage here young Shinji laid, napping silently. At the sight of her friend, the redhead rose to her feet, her eyes still wide, sweat billowing from her pours. Were her knees shaking? Were her feet numb? She didn't know, though she was aware of the fact she couldn't stand still, nor could she breath properly. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I think I have," Asuka replied, gasping for air at last, becoming aware she had been holding her breath before.

"Come again?"

"I just saw—no, I think I just saw—no, maybe it was—no, couldn't be—"

"Slow down and just speak, alright?" Hikari replied, perhaps anxious that Asuka's rambling would awaken the napping babe.

"I think I just saw Rei."

"Rei? You mean Ayanami?"

"Yeah, that one!"

"Isn't she dead?"

"She is, right?"

"Well, you'd know better than me."

"Well, I don't know anything anymore right now. She's supposed to be dead. She should be dead. Has to be. That doll can't be alive. Was she ever alive? I don't know. Can something that wasn't really alive like a doll really be dead?"

"You're not making any sense, Asuka! Just sit down and let's just—"

"I can't just sit down! We need to tell Shinji, or Misato, or Fuyutsuki, or someone!" Asuka stammered, about to pull away, only for Hikari to grab her by the wrist. "Let me go!"

"Listen to yourself for a second! Do you realize what you're saying?" Hikari stammered, frantically.

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? You're hysterical! Think about it for a second! You're saying a girl who's been dead for the past decade, more than that, is alive and well and you just saw her. Do you know what they're gonna think?"

"No."

"They're gonna think you're losing it."

For a moment, the image of a woman sitting on her bed emerged in the German's mind eye. She imagined a woman seeing things too, such as seeing a girl in her hands when all that she held was a fabric doll, a doll she called her daughter. She could see the woman's real daughter standing outside of her room, kept from contacting her mother. She saw herself as a child, staring at the mother who told people what she saw.

Was she going crazy? She had to be. She was saying she saw a dead girl walking around as though she were alive. What if she was becoming like her mother? Her mama? Surely, this couldn't be true. The circumstances were different, very different, but even so, what if other people didn't see it that way? What if they locked her up in a madhouse? What if everyone abandoned her? What if they took away her own future daughter—er, child?

What then?

No, that was just crazy paranoid rambling, wasn't it?

Was it worth it to find out what it was?

"I understand. I must be stressed out and saw something," Asuka sighed, doubting her own mouth.

"Do you want me to help you out or anything?"

"Can you get me some chocolate and some water?"

#

Shinji Ikari opened the door to his apartment, sighing as he ran a hand up his hair, anxiously. He glanced around, hoping he could avoid looking at his fiancé for too long. If he saw her, he was afraid he'd spill the beans, crack under her forceful eyes and tell her the truth, that Rei Ayanami was alive and well, with video and photograph evidence to prove it.

When his eyes landed on Asuka playing her game, he was relieved. No eye contact for him. "Hey, Asuka."

No response.

"Uh, do you want me to get you anything to eat?"

No response.

"Oh, uh, okay then. Chocolate?"

No response.

"Okay, uh, work was really rough today. How was your day?"

No response.

"Did I do something to bother you or something?"

"Shut up."

"What's that?" Shinji stared at the redhead, concerned. Her voice was so flat, so unmotivated. She hadn't spoken like that since after Third Impact, when she was bleeding on the inside on a deserted beach, bleeding slowly through her torn intestine. He stared at her, bewildered as she stared blankly, lowering her head in shame as she turned away from Shinji, her hair falling over her face.

"It's not you, don't worry. It's just—I don't know."

Shinji neared his fiancé, extending his hand to comfort her, only to draw back. She was in one of her moods. Was it wise to even touch the time bomb at a time like this? Yes, she needed someone to help. He neared her again, putting a hand on her shoulder, gently. "Hey, listen, what's bothering you?"

"I think I'm going insane is all, no big deal!"

"What? What do you mean?"

Asuka began to laugh at this, but it wasn't a normal laugh. It was a hoarse, dry laugh, a cruel laugh, a laugh that bore no humor in it at all. "If I told you, you'd probably think I'm nuts. Don't worry. I know it couldn't be real. Maybe it was all just a dream I had with my eyes open."

"Oh, okay," Shinji mumbled, backing away. How did he deal with this? It wasn't like Asuka hadn't broken down like this before, but he couldn't just check her into a clinic like this with a baby on the way. Would they be able to treat her properly with a baby boy—er, child—in her body? What if they hurt their unborn infant, or if they somehow screwed up giving her enough food to feed their child? What if they gave her medication that could hurt their child? No, surely Asuka would need to stay out of a home as she struggled with her issues.

But how could that work out if Asuka didn't tell him what was wrong?


End file.
